Concreting of the fifth tier of the inner containment of the reactor building at unit 2 of Bangladesh’s first nuclear power plant (NPP) at Rooppur has been completed, according to a statement by the Russian state atomic energy corporation Rosatom.
Rosatom, the equipment supplier and technical consultant for the project, is building two VVER-1200 units of 1,200 MW capacity each at Rooppur located on the eastern bank of the river Ganges.
A Rosatom statement said that on December 24, 2021, it took the specialists of Trest Rossem 23 hours of uninterrupted work to cast 850 cubic metres of self-compacting concrete mix.
“Concreting of the fifth tier of the inner containment from elevation +38.180 to elevation+43.400 was completed significantly ahead of schedule”, Rosatom subsidiary ASE Vice President and Rooppur NPP Construction Project Director, Alexey Deriy, said in a statement.
“This is a testament of the high professional level of the specialists of Trest Rossem in Bangladesh and a good example of well-coordinated work of the entire team at the construction site”, he added.
Concreting of the fifth tier completes the construction of the cylindrical part of the inner containment that is one of the main components of the NPP reactor safety system which prevents release of radioactive substances into the environment.
The dome of the power unit will be installed on the inner containment in the next phase, the statement said.
Currently, works are in progress for manufacturing of elements for the containment dome part. It is planned to complete the erection of steel structures of the inner containment dome in the first half of 2022, the statement added.
In June 2020, a truss, or support structure, for the second unit reactor of the Rooppur NPP was installed. The support truss is one of the most important elements of the equipment of the reactor pit, and is designed to reliably fasten the reactor vessel and protect it from weight and seismic loads.
The installation of the reactor pressure vessel for unit 1 at Rooppur was completed in October 2021. A Rosatom statement said that installation of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) weighing more than 334 tonnes started on September 14, 2021, and was completed on October 10, when it was inaugurated at a formal ceremony attended by Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev, and which was witnessed via video link by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Both the latest generation III+ 1,200 MW power units at the Rooppur NPP, located 160 km from the capital Dhaka, will be equipped with active as well as passive safety systems, including molten core catchers. This evolutionary reactor design fully complies with all the international safety requirements, the statement said.
