Dutch company Enersea has designed a new walk-to-work system for Ampelmann, said to be especially suitable for offshore wind market.
The newly-designed W-type is an electric gangway system developed for the Service Operation Vessel (SOV) market to efficiently transfer personnel and cargo at various heights.
Enersea has been involved in previous designs of Ampelmann systems such as the A-type and L-type, which were hexapod based systems.
For the W-type, Ampelmann asked Enersea to design a new type of access system consisting of an integrated tower and gangway. In close co-operation with the Amplemann engineering department the design process has evolved into an innovation in the offshore market, the companies claim.
Several new features have been incorporated in the design. The gangway can convert into a fully functional crane with a lifting capacity of 2 tonnes. Further, with its 1.2-meter width, the gangway is wide enough to transfer trolleys of up to 750 kilograms from service operation vessels.
This is especially convenient for the offshore wind market as servicing individual turbines requires a substantial amount of equipment and tools, Enersea said, as these can now easily be rolled to the transition piece or working platform of the wind turbine foundation.
This modular gangway has a height-adjustable range from 10 to 16 meters. The tower raises the gangway to the required lifting height. Next to this, the tower consists of an elevator with automated doors. The system is fully electric and with its efficient design the carbon footprint is low compared to other gangway systems.
“Offshore wind farm operators have expressed great interest in the smart designed W-type. Ampelmann has already sold 7 W-type gangways of which production has started,” Enersea said in the statement.