Background
With more than 20 years' experience and more than 30,000 MW installed in 50 countries, our client is a global technological leader in the wind industry. Its comprehensive response includes also the wind turbine's operation and maintenance services, which manages for more than 20,000 MW.
The company has production centers in the main wind markets: Europe and China, as the global production and supply hubs, while maintaining its local production capacity in Asia, US, and South America.
The challenge
Our client is looking to optimize logistics costs and one of those is the associated to maritime transportation of blades. Blades need to be transported from their manufacturing facilities to remote locations for final installation at wind farms.
Maritime transportation cost is directly dependent on the volume of the shipped merchandise and blades represent one of the components with the highest volume.
This challenge is focused on two kinds of blades (see documents in annex for detailed data) that are being shipped with the following layout:
- G97i blades: Layout of 9 stacks with 2 blades/stacks (total 18 blades) with a total volume of 5815 m3. Each stack dimensions are 48.954 x 4395 x 3000 mm
- G114 blades: Layout of 9 stacks with 2 blades/stacks (total 18 blades) with a total volume of 6745 m3. Stack dimensions are 56848 x 4395 x 3000 mm.
What the client is looking for
Our client is looking for solutions to reduce the current volume (m3) of blades shipping.
- G97i blade equivalent volume in transportation = 5815/ 18 m3.
- G114 blade average volume in transportation = 6745 / 18 m3.
Available ships enable a max. lenght of 93-95 mts and 10 mts in height (see full details in annex).
To optimize shipping volume you should consider:
- Any blades stacking/layout might be possible at ship loading.
- Any proposed stacking/layout should respect supporting points in the blades.
Please note that this challenge is looking for the best and feasible stacking/ layout to minimize volume and then to redesign the transport toolkits.
Blades 3D models and 3 types of ships documentation are attached to the challenge. You can use http://stpviewer.com (for windows OS) to visualize the models.
This tournament will have the following rounds and submissions:
First round
- A layout design for blades layout/stacking that reduces the shipping volume
- A description of the process/maneuver to load the blades into the ship
Second round
- A first design for the proposed transport toolkits
Third round
- Detailed design and structural analysis for the transport toolkits
During this round the name of our client will be disclosed.
Configuration to be presented should be for the transport of a group (layout) in 3D in the same format that the documentation provided (see attachment), showing the fitting between 2 blades (or group of blades selected as reference) and fitting for a complete matrix of 18 blades, with a conceptual-dimensional pre-design of the tooling.
Evaluation criteria
Primary objectives
- % G97i and G114 blade equivalent volume reduction: 8% minimum
- Easy of blades ship loading process
Other criteria (optional):
- Suggestions to redesing blades to further optimize the shipping volume
Timeline
This is a 3 Rounds tournament:
1st round: 4 weeks + 1 week for evaluation
2nd round: 3 weeks + 1 weeks for evaluation
3rd round: 2 weeks + 0,5 week for final evaluation
