13.02.2020  The Kursk NPP Information and Public Relations Department

The first key milestone of 2020 has been achieved at the Kursk NPP-2 with the assembly of the outer reactor containment ground floor

The first out of this year’s 10 key milestones of the Kursk NPP-2 construction has been achieved ahead of schedule as the assembly of the outer reactor containment ground floor completed at the 1st power block.

‘The construction of the Kursk NPP-2 power blocks is within schedule and actually even ahead of it’, Nikolay Mitrofanov, the first deputy director of new power blocks construction, noted. ‘The containment works are organized in stages. We have installed 15 reinforced concrete blocks making up a circle of 50.8 meters in diameter’.

A lot of time was saved thanks to effective collaboration between all departments involved as well as successful implementation of the construction work package project to consolidate the unit constructions within the workshop as much as possible. ‘This technology helped us minimize the high-rise operations at the construction site and all related time-consuming activities to set up elevated work places’, Alexey Smirnov, the director of the OOO ‘Trest RosSAM’ affiliate, said.

The outer containment is one of the most important localizing safety systems of a power block. It is designed to handle both the operational impact – radioactive and thermal emissions – and the extreme weather conditions, such as hurricanes, storms, seismic loading of safety shutdown earthquake, as well as a blasting effect or a plane crash.

‘The containment is 65.4 meters high, with its width varying between 0.5 and 1.5 meters’, Nikolay Mitrofanov continued. ‘The project outlines a 5-tier construction, and it is due to be completed in 2023’.

The construction team began the assembly of the outer containment’s ground floor at the -0.050 meters mark and have now grown the structure to a level of +8.950 meters.

The installation of additional reinforcement bars is now in progress, to be followed by concreting of the outer containment ground floor’s second section (the first one has already been concreted) and the adjoining structures. The construction team is planning to commence the installation of the next ground in late May.

*The 3+ generation 1st and 2nd power blocks of the Kursk NPP-2 are pilot projects constructed based on the VVER-TOI project (pressurized water type reactor standard optimized). This is a new designed elaborated by Russian specialists (ASE Group, the engineering division of the Rosatom State Corporation) on top of the technical solutions of the VVER-1200 NPP project. Compared to the previous-generation power blocks (VVER-1000), the capacity of each has been increased by 25%, up to 1,255 megawatt. The life span of the major equipment has doubled. The new Kursk NPP-2 power blocks comply with the most recent safety regulations set by the IAEA.

The developer and the technical customer of the facility is the Rosenergoatom Joint-Stock Company. The general designer and the general contractor is ASE.

As of now, the 1st, the 2nd and the 4th power block of the Kursk NPP run at the capacity set in the dispatch schedule. The 3rd power block is undergoing scheduled maintenance.

The radiation background at the Kursk NPP and within its location area is within the limit of normal power block operation and does not exceed the natural background level.

All up-to-date information about the radiation environment next to the Russian NPPs and other nuclear power facilities is available at www.russianatom.ru


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