Blade lifting yoke

A blade lifting yoke, clamp or gripper is used for the lifting and handling of wind turbine blades during installation and maintenance activities.

Description of Manufacturing Process
Typically made of steal beams obtained through cutting, bending and welding. Machining, including milling, drilling, boring and grinding is required for smaller components within the yoke and for interface surfaces.

Description of Supply Chain
Procured from a wind energy lifting equipment specialist, which either manufactures in-house or subcontracts the fabrication to a manufacturing partner. In both cases, the manufacturer typically does not have the required CNC capability and subcontracts the machining to a CNC expert.

Scottish Opportunity
Relevance to Scottish Supply Chain: Medium

There are several blade lifting equipment specialists operating in the UK, such as Osbit, Certex and Enabl. When local capability exists, they tend to appoint UK manufacturers for the fabrication of the tools, which themselves could be interested in subcontracting machining to a Scotland-based CNC expert. The demand is, however, relatively low as yokes can be reused on many wind farms.