Felbermayr turbine trek

The challenging 350 km transport of a 300 tonne turbine and other units in Romania was carried out by Felbermayr in a four month period to April 2010.

Felbermayr's first duties began when SPMTs were used to roll a 302 tonne gas turbine on to a flat roof pontoon at the Black Sea port of Constanta on the River Danube. From there it travelled to the town of Oltenita, about 210 miles (336 km) away.

"This was the only technically plausible solution," says Daniel Costea at Felbermayr Bucharest, "With a width and height of around 6 m and a length of almost 13 m it was necessary to avoid travelling by road."

From Oltenita the gas turbine was transported about 70 km south of Bucharest using a rostrum trailer with 22 axles on both the front and back. It was chosen to provide optimum axle distribution and to keep the transport height as low as possible, explains Costea.

Two traction units and one pushing machine, with a combined 2,000 hp (1,491 kW), were used to power the 110 m long transport. In total, including the turbine, it weighed 650 tonnes.

"So it is no wonder that not only countless cables and road signs stood in the way of the transport but also bridges whose bearing load had to be scrutinised. In total, static calculations were required for 34 bridges," says Costea. Luckily all bridge crossovers had the required dimensions, sparing the need for added bridge supports.

An idiosyncrasy was the 4.2 m pedestrian bridges that crossed the road connection every few kilometres between Bucharest and the final destination of Petrobrazi power station, near Ploiesti. The transport was more than 6 m high, so a near-200 km diversion was required.

In addition to the turbine, other loads transported included transformers, heating modules and other oversized cargos. They weighed a total of 50,000 freight tonnes and were transported to the power station building site.

Another gas turbine, a steam turbine and three generators, were also moved, completing the project at the end of June. Work was carried out by Felbermayr employees from the Bucharest, Linz and Wels branches.

The 860 MW power station begins full operation in 2012 and will produce more than 8% of Romania's electricity.