The second unit at Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear power plant has had the installation of its reactor pressure vessel (RPV) completed.
The reactor vessel – which is 11.45 metres by 5.6 metres and weighs 343 tonnes – was installed in position in an operation lasting about six hours, using a Liebherr 13,000 crawler crane, Rosatom’s Akkuyu Nuclear said.
Before the installation, a support ring was mounted in the reactor building to hold the weight of the vessel. The Turkish Nuclear Regulatory Agency was part of the inspection control commission.
Sergey Butskikh, first deputy general director of Akkuyu Nuclear JSC and director of the NPP under Construction, said: “Installation of the reactor vessel of unit 2 is one of the main events of this year. I want to note the impeccable work of the installation team and lifting equipment operators. Mounting the housing requires exceptional precision: the maximum allowable horizontal deviation does not exceed a tenth of a millimetre.”
Rosatom is building four VVER-1200 reactors at Akkuyu, under a so-called BOO (build-own-operate) model. Construction of the first unit began in 2018, with startup planned for 2023. The 4800 MWe plant is expected to meet about 10% of Turkey’s electricity needs.
Manufacture of the RPV for Akkuyu 2 began at Izhorskiye Zavody in March 2019. It was transported by ship from St Petersburg in northwest Russia on 23 November, sailing more than 9000 kilometres to the site on the coast of south east Turkey.
Source: World Nuclear News
