In transportation, heavy lift refers to the handling and installation of heavy items which are indivisible, and of weights generally accepted to be over 100 tons and of widths/heights of more than 100 meters. These oversized items are transported from one place to another (sometimes across country borders), then lifted or installed into place. Characteristic for heavy-lift goods is the absence of standardization, which requires individual transport planning. Mode Of Transport * Road Transport * Air Transport * Sea Transport * Rail Transport

Typical cargo

Typical heavy-lift cargo includes generators, turbines, reactors, boilers, towers, casting, heaters, presses, locomotives, boats, satellites, military personnel and equipment. In the offshore industry, parts of oil rigs and production platforms are also lifted; some of these are also removed at the end of an installation's working life. Recent notable lifts have included several of >2000

metric tons The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the sh ...

in the de-commissioning of the North West Hutton oil field in the British sector of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

. Typical cargo consist of * Wind turbines * Farm machinery * Earth moving machinery * Cranes * Mining equipment and accessories * Storage tanks * Heavy industrial components * Construction machinery

Mode of transport

Road Transport

Road transport of heavy and oversized load is called heavy haulage specialized equipment is used to haul these load, which are only employed for heavy-duty work. This type of transport requires route planning and escort vehicles. Road transport is carried out from or to manufacturing plants or factories. Heavy Lift Road Equipment. * Lowboy trailers * Hydraulic modular trailers *

Tractor unit A tractor unit, also known as a truck unit, lorry unit, power unit, prime mover, ten-wheeler, semi-tractor, semi-truck, semi-lorry, tractor cab, truck cab, lorry cab, big rig tractor, big rig truck or big rig lorry or simply a tractor, truck, ...

Ballast tractor A ballast tractor is a specially weighted tractor unit of a heavy hauler combination. It is designed to utilize a drawbar to pull or push heavy or exceptionally large trailer loads which are loaded in a hydraulic modular trailer. When feasi ...

* self-propelled modular trailer * Mobile cranes

Air Transport

Heavy lift transport of project cargo is done using

cargo planes A cargo aircraft (also known as freight aircraft, freighter, airlifter or cargo jet) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is designed or converted for the carriage of air cargo, cargo rather than passenger aircraft, passengers. Such aircraft generally ...

, which are one of the largest aircraft due to the size of the load these loads are carried to or from airports via road transport. In 2021 Gebrüder Weiss a logistics company chartered an

Antonov An-225 Mriya The Antonov An-225 Mriya (; NATO reporting name: Cossack) was a large strategic airlift cargo aircraft designed and produced by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. It was originally developed during the 1980s as an enlarged deriva ...

world's largest cargo plane to transport project cargo from

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

for a Polish factory. This was done due to scarcity of time in the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Largest Cargo Planes *

* Antonov An-124 Condor * Boeing 747-8 Freighter *

Lockheed C-5 Galaxy The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed Corporation, Lockheed, and now maintained and upgraded by its successor, Lockheed Martin. It provides the United States Air Force (USAF) with a heavy ...

* Airbus Beluga XL

Sea Transport

Sea transport is the preferred mode of transport for long distance due to large space and low cost when compared to air transport, but this mode of transport requires more planning and the transport itself takes long time. Loads are carried to the port via road transport, later cranes and gantry are used to place loads onto or into the vessels. Heavy Lift Sea Equipment. * Heavy lift ship * Deck barge * Roro ship * Lolo ship *

Crane vessel A crane vessel, crane ship, crane barge, or floating crane is a ship with a crane specialized in lifting heavy loads, typically exceeding for modern ships. The largest crane vessels are used for offshore construction. The cranes are fitted to c ...

Tugboat A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, suc ...

Soyuz TMA-16 launch vehicle being transported to pad

Rail Transport

For land transport, rail transport is also considered as an option for hauling heavy lift cargo over road transport due to advantages of higher speeds, bulk transportation and lower cost compared to road transport. Companies have managed to haul cargos over 250 tons and 30 meters long, and some have also started moves longer cargos like windmill blades. Disadvantage to the rail transport is the access ability and size restrictions. Railroads are not connected to airports and ports directly, ultimately the cargo has to be transmitted to road transport to reach the final destination. Heavy Lift Rail Equipment *

Flatcar A flatcar (US) (also flat car, or flatbed) is a piece of rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on trucks (US) or bogies (UK) at each end. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry extra heavy or extra large loads are mounted ...

* Crane car * Lowmac car *

Schnabel car A Schnabel car or Schnabel wagon is a specialized type of railroad freight car. It is designed to carry heavy and oversized loads in such a way that the load makes up part of the car. The load is suspended between the two ends of the cars by li ...

* Push-pull trains

References

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Literature

* Pieper, Marcus: Durchführung eines Schwergut-Transportes mit Binnenschiff und Straßenfahrzeug aus technischer und organisatorischer Sicht. Bremen 1997. * Internationale Transport-Zeitschrift; 2008, 13/14. Spezial: Break Bulk, Schwergut-Special Freight transport Heavy haulage Transport