Construction works at Akkuyu are going full tilt, while Russian companies keep on supplying principal equipment for the plant. Rosatom also continues to take part in cultural, social and educational events at local and nationwide levels.
In mid-May, installation of the turbine building roof was completed at Akkuyu Unit 2. The roof of the turbine building consists of nine pre-assembled trusses. Each weighs 95 to 175 tonnes and is 61 meters long. The trusses were pre-assembled on two designated stands and installed using a heavy crawler crane. Each truss is installed with an accuracy of up to ten millimeters.
In early May, installation of horizontal moisture separator reheaters (MSRs) was finished in the turbine building of Unit 1. They are part of auxiliary systems of the plant’s steam turbine. The MSRs serve to maintain the temperature and humidity of steam that rotates the turbine blades.
Horizontal MSRs, which are conventionally made vertical, were designed specially for the Akkuyu NPP. The improved modification made it possible to put two conventional MSRs into a single body, thus reducing their total number from four to two. In addition, the horizontal design requires almost half as much steel as conventional MSRs while being more efficient, reliable and cost-effective in general.
A containment airlock was also installed at Unit 1. It is a 14 meter cylinder-shaped chamber with gates on both sides. Since the gates open in sequence, they make the reactor containment airtight. It is intended to bring operation and maintenance equipment inside the reactor building. When the nuclear power plant is in operation, the airlock will be also used to deliver fresh nuclear fuel containers into the reactor containment and remove spent fuel casks. The airlock weighs 260 tonnes and is 7 meters in diameter.
On April 22, a set of steam generators for Akkuyu Unit 3 was shipped from Atommash. This is a meaningful date for the company as construction of its production facilities started on that date 50 years ago. Today, Atommash is one of Russia’s leading manufacturers of equipment for the nuclear, oil and gas industries. According to Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev, the company has orders in its pipeline for the next few years as it has been contracted to produce equipment for the nuclear and turbine islands of 10 power reactors in Russia and abroad.
The steam generator is a safety class 1 product and one of the key parts of the reactor plant. It produces steam that is fed to the turbine generator, which in turn converts the energy of steam into electricity. Each reactor unit has four steam generators. One generator is over four meters in diameter and 15 meters in length, and weighs 355 tonnes.
In late April, ZiO Podolsk (part of Rosatom’s power engineering division) shipped a set of high-pressure preheaters for Akkuyu Unit 1. These essential devices of the nuclear island are basically heat exchangers that warm up feed water supplied to the steam generator by condensing steam from the turbine exhausts. Each of them is about 12 meters long and weighs 84 tonnes.
Sports and festivities
In late April, the Turkish Chess Championship among junior and star teams concluded in the city of Karaman. It was organized by the Turkish Chess Federation in association with Rosatom. The championship brought together 78 teams and over 400 chess players who had won local tournaments in different cities across Turkey. The winning teams will represent the country at the European Youth Team Chess Championship to be held in June on the island of Rhodes.
Gülkız Tulay, President of the Turkish Chess Federation, congratulated the winners and medalists of the championship and said: “We are very pleased with our cooperation with Rosatom, one of the global technology leaders. Thanks to the chess sport, we are further strengthening the historical friendship between Turkey and Russia and investing in the future. We would like to thank the representatives of Rosatom for their contribution.”
Alexander Voronkov, Vice President for Middle East and North Africa at Rosatom, mentioned the initiatives that had been jointly launched by Rosatom and the Turkish Chess Federation since 2019. “The province of Mersin, the host region for the Akkuyu NPP construction project, has become home to a regional chess tournament for the Rosatom Cup. We are happy to see that our joint initiatives bear fruit and contribute to the promotion of chess in Turkey, helping young players achieve new heights. As a corporation of knowledge, Rosatom sees the fulfillment of children’s and teenagers’ intellectual potential as one of its most crucial missions,” Alexander Voronkov said.
Rosatom organizes regular educational and cultural events in the host communities of the Akkuyu NPP. On the eve of April 23, Turkey’s National Sovereignty and Children’s Day, Akkuyu Nuclear organized a tour to the under-construction nuclear plant for 23 primary and secondary school students and their teachers from the village of Keben, Silifke district.
After a safety briefing, the children went to take a look at how different professions work at the construction site. They took part in games and workshops, completed interesting tasks, and received souvenirs for their participation. The children visited the Vostochny cargo terminal that receives all large-size cargoes for the construction site. They were also brought to the site near Unit 1 to see the world’s most powerful crawler crane Liebherr LR 13000 in operation, and took turns to sit in the operator’s chair.
The firefighters on round-the-clock duty at the plant’s fire station showed the children the equipment they use in their work and demonstrated a fire brigade training session. The schoolchildren also visited a new training center for plant operators and control system engineers.
After the tour ended, the children watched a congratulatory video from their Russian peers and received gifts.
“We love children very much and always welcome them with pleasure at the site. It is a great happiness to watch how they discover a completely new world, how happy they are to see large construction machinery and how they listen with interest to our experienced professionals speaking about their jobs in plain language,” Akkuyu Nuclear CEO Anastasia Zoteeva commented on the tour.
