World's first offshore telescopic crane

The world's first offshore telescopic crane

GustoMSC recently won the Maritime Innovation Award for the design and construction of the first telescopic offshore crane on board an installation vessel for installing wind turbines at sea. For this purpose, we, as Batenburg JB Systems, have realized the electrical design and control of the crane.

Telescopic cranes are very common on land, but not yet offshore. The modular, telescopic offshore crane from GustoMSC is a unique construction. The crane with an electrical capacity of 3MW extends 40 meters in just 12 minutes, can lift up to 2500 tons when retracted and 1250 tons when fully extended.

BlueWind

The crane is part of a large installation vessel called 'Blue Wind'. The Japanese owner Shimizu is installing wind turbines at sea. A limited lifting height is required to install the wind turbine pole (monopile), the transition pieces and other heavy parts. The turbine blades require more lifting height, but they are much lighter. With the telescopic crane, both activities can be carried out while the required space on the ship remains limited. “The strength of this design is that the boom of the crane does not extend over the ship,” explains Richard Verkerk, senior software engineer at Batenburg JB Systems. “As a result, the ship remains easy to maneuver in tight situations, for example in ports.”

Complete control

GustoMSC supplied the concept of the crane and also built a scale model.

GustoMSC also designed the ship and built the jacking system so that the ship and therefore the crane are stable in relation to the swell. We were commissioned to supply the software and hardware for the crane control. The hardware for the drive part was outsourced by GustoMSC to NOV Norway, and Siemens technology was chosen as standard. “GustoMSC has standardized on Siemens drives and also uses them in its jacking systems. Their service employees have a lot of experience with it. At some point, the drive cabinets including the motors were sent to the Netherlands so that we could test and parameterize the SINAMICS S120 drives,” says Verkerk.

Safety first

Controlling a telescopic crane was new for Batenburg JB Systems. A challenge. Verkerk: “This crane is enormous. When things go wrong, things go wrong. The greatest risk is in the mechanical construction, but GustoMSC has taken this into account in the design. For example, the brakes are strong enough to stop the crane, even with a high load. We have ensured that all winches compensate for the force play during retraction and extension, because if the boom does not remain within a certain angle, it can buckle due to the weight. Especially during telescoping at height, all winches are running at full speed. Nice to see! As an additional safety measure, we have applied a Safety PLC. This is not mandatory in the offshore industry, but at Batenburg JB Systems we like to go the extra mile in terms of safety.”

User friendly

We used WinCC Professional for the visualization. “Together with GustoMSC, we have carefully considered the structure of the HMI. Extra attention was paid to the user interface and ease of use. The crane operator spends 12 hours a day looking at a screen. So it makes sense that you think carefully in advance about, among other things, the size of the buttons and the things you do and do not show. That also has to do with safety.”

Digital Twin

With the help of a Digital Twin, we were able to virtually test the controls in advance. The Digital Twin was later sold to the owner for onboard training. Since the project fell during the corona period, part of the commissioning was done remotely from Vlaardingen. “Pre-commissioning would initially take place at the crane builder in China. Due to corona, this only happened in Japan, where the crane was placed on the ship. When the crane was in China, we tested all sensors by remotely taking over the engineering station on board. With our help, GustoMSC's site engineers also did some of the commissioning in Japan remotely. The Japanese shipyard had set up a 4G connection for this purpose.”

Multi-user Engineering

The corona pandemic was an enormous challenge for everyone involved, but it has also strengthened the acceptance for remote commissioning and engineering from home. “We worked on this project with several software and hardware engineers, but everyone was at home because of corona. Without the multi-user functionality within TIA Portal, we would never have been able to successfully complete this project. It is ideal for engineers to be able to work together within one environment. It saves us time and allows us to work from home more often. We mainly use the multi-user functionality for large projects. In addition, it is super efficient that Siemens has also integrated the SINAMICS drives into TIA Portal. This means you can achieve communication between the drives and the PLC much faster. And if everything is in one package, you don't have to worry about backups and software updates.”

A successful sequel

The Blue Wind has been in operation since the spring of 2023 and works to the complete satisfaction of the customer. GustoMSC has now sold a similar telescopic crane to another customer. We were also allowed to supply the controls for this. GustoMSC is a loyal customer who suits us well. We have more or less a permanent team of engineers working for them. We were also recently allowed to build a new control system for a mast crane on board a ship. We are currently working on two other crane projects. Always with Siemens automation, because that works most pleasantly and efficiently for us!”