Portal machines XXL machine duo breaks all dimensions

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The family-owned company Haco A/S from Jutland ordered two gigantic Droop+Rein gantry machines due to the unbroken trend towards ever larger wind turbines.

When it comes to the energy transition, Denmark is leading the way: The country now covers 40 percent of its energy needs with electricity from wind turbines. The XXL components required for this have been produced for years by Danish specialist companies, such as Starrag's regular customer Haco, which now processes more than 10,000 tons of steel per year in the Danish town of Barrit, and the trend is rising. This is because the components for the new offshore wind turbines are getting bigger and bigger. 
The new requirements are enormous. For example, Haco Managing Director Henning Albrechtsen had to increase the swing diameter of a Starrag vertical lathe from 6,000 to 8,000 millimeters. But even that will soon no longer be enough - with direct-drive wind turbines with outputs of up to 16 megawatts and rotor housings with a diameter of more than 10,000 millimeters.

The Danes master these XXL challenges with Starrag. The Danish entrepreneur describes the many years of cooperation with Dipl.-Ing. Hubert Erz, Senior Consultant Sales / Renewables, as a "significantly decisive factor" for the purchase of two Droop+Rein portal milling machines for the complete machining of rotor housings, sheet metal and brake disks, among other things. 
A gantry portal milling machine is currently under construction at the branch plant in Bielefeld/Germany, which, in combination with a 100-kilowatt milling head and 2 x 111-kilowatt master-slave main drive, enables powerful turning, milling and drilling of even very large components made of high-strength welded steel and cast constructions. The machine offers a distance of 12,600 millimetres between the columns, the gantry axis travels over 14,000 millimetres and the RAM allows a maximum stroke of 3,500 millimetres.

Turntable adjustable to 15,000 millimeters orbital diameter

When the portal milling machine is delivered at the end of 2023, it will be followed by a portal turning machine with an adjustable table. By adjusting this third linear axis, the turning diameter can be increased from 13,000 to 15,000 millimetres if required. For multifunctional machining, the gantry lathe will be equipped with a 2 x 136-kilowatt master-slave main drive and 80-kilowatt milling head. 
However, the flexible XXL duo is not intended for the Haco headquarters; it is to be used in Rødekro, 100 kilometers to the south. Valmont SM A/S, one of the world's leading suppliers of steel components for the wind power industry, is based there. Until now, the welded raw parts that the Haco plant in Barrit received by heavy-duty transport for mechanical finishing came from this company.

Sustainable logistics for sustainable products

As part of a multi-year customer contract with a well-known manufacturer of offshore wind turbines, Haco and Valmont therefore decided on a new, more sustainable form of cooperation. At Valmont's headquarters in Rødekro, Haco is therefore setting up a branch plant for the two portal machines in order to manufacture the gigantic components for the joint customer directly on site without the usual heavy overland transportation.

The new form of sustainable co-production will start in November 2023 with the commissioning of machine no. 1 in Rødekro. The proximity to the sea also speaks in favor of the new location, as ships can transport even gigantic rotor housings weighing several tons from there in an environmentally friendly manner by ship for assembly at the offshore wind turbine manufacturer, whose plant is also located near the coast. Starrag project manager Erz: "This eliminates the need for many additional kilometers of heavy transport, which would not only block road traffic but also pollute the environment."

_{* Nikolaus Fecht is a freelance author}