The team has installed the final, eleventh, reinforcement block for the reactor containment’s third floor at the Kursk NPP-2 1st power unit under construction. Thus, the construction team has completed the assembly of the containment’s cylindrical piece. This will be followed by three floors of the crestal area.

‘The third floor of the containment made the first power block’s structure reach the mark of 36 meters. The height of the containment including its dome will be 61.7 meters. The third floor is the heaviest of those installed, with the total weight of the assembled structures reaching 1,330 tons’, Alexey Buldygin, the head of the Kursk NPP-2 Capital Construction Department, said.

The containment is one of the key elements for the power unit’s safety that prevents radioactive substances from reaching the environment. The third floor of the containment is peculiar in a way that it has hatchway embedded plates in separate section, which are designed for the transport, the main operational and the backup hatchways. These embedded plates are required to enable further hatchway installation.

It was especially difficult to install the last reinforcement block due to its displaced center of gravity caused by the hatchway embedded plate. It took the team 3 hours and one Demag crane to complete the installation of the closing section that weighs 130 tons.

‘This was exquisite workmanship. At first, they had to pass the floor opening precisely, then turn the reinforcement block around very carefully and fix it in its design position. The team has little to no room for error’, Alexey Smirnov, the director of the OOO ‘Trest RosSAM’ Kursk Office, said.

At the next stage, the construction team will commence floor concreting, which is to be finalized in December 2020.