We continue the biomass voyage that started in the forest with a Komatsu 911 and a Bracke C16 felling head. (Read that article here) The next step is to transfer the material into woodchips. In this case by using a truck-mounted chipper.
Bruks 806 truck-mounted chipper
Again, we visited Svenssons Energiflis AB in south Sweden. But this time to have a look at one of their chippers. A Bruks 806 chipper mounted on a Volvo truck.
The rig consists of a truck with the chipper and a small chip-bin, and a trailer with a big chip-bin. All in all, it is 24 meters long, 2,6 meters wide and weighs 64 tons fully loaded with 116 cubic meters of chips.
The chipper and hydraulics are powered from the 750 hp Volvo truck engine.
All the way to the combustion plant
With this logistical system, the chips can be delivered to the combustion plant by the chipper itself. No extra base unit, such as a forwarder, to carry the chipper is needed. The sometimes complicated handling of chip containers in the forest is also avoided.
One may think that the chipper package represents an unwanted extra weight on the truck, meaning less payload. Actually, when you compare with a truck with a hook lift container system, which is common here in Sweden, you will find that the containers and hook lift are much heavier than the chip-bins on the kind of system we are talking about here. So, the difference in the payload is not so big that you might think.
The downside of using a truck chipper, compared to a forwarder mounted chipper, is that the material that is to be chipped has to be reachable from a road.
Facts & figures
Chipper Bruks 806
Infeed opening W x H (mm) 850 x 720
Adjustable chip length (mm) 35 – 45
Max diameter, softwood (mm) 500
Max diameter, hardwood (mm) 400
Capacity (m3/h) 100 – 200
Crane Cranab FC8
Truck Volvo F16
Power (hp) 750
Total weight (truck and trailer) tons 64
Payload (truck and trailer) tons 30
Chip volume on the truck, cubic meters 116
Film and more
Here is an article from 2017 about an Albach chipper.
And here is an article about a research project that aims to streamline the harvest of biomass from the forest.
More about the Bruks chippers, you will find here.
Finally, here is a film from the visit by the truck chipper.
