At the end of December at the Tianwan site the containment dome was installed at unit 2 of the reactor building. As said Valeriy Limarenko, General Contractor’s NIAEP-ASE company President, “It is very important for the company that the Tianwan NPP was acknowledged as one of the safest plants in China. The construction of the station’s second stage is going according to the schedule, which is not so typical for the world’s practice of implementation of new projects. The containment dome installation today means the beginning of a new stage – organization of a containment “clear zone” and the beginning of the main equipment installation”.

Two efficient units
Containment is the fourth barrier providing a NPP safety. Reactor’s building double containment, a part of which is the dome, doesn’t allow radioactive emissions to the environment and serves as the means of physical protection of equipment inside the containment from outer natural and technogenic burdens, including earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunami and plane crashes.

The next stage of construction works is the beginning of the main equipment mounting, which are steam generators and main circulation lines. Upon the completion of inner containment construction works and concrete shell pre-stress system installation of the reactor building, the works of outer containment will start.

‘We believe that both construction and precommissioning of the Tianwan NPP second stage will be done strictly on time, which means, that China is about to have two more safe and efficient power units”, – Mr Limarenko emphasized. Meanwhile, ZiO-Podolsk plant (part of Energomash, ROSATOM’s machine-building division) has started producing PGV-1000M steam generators for the Tiawant station – the equipment meant for unit 4. A steam-generator is a part of the reactor system main circulation line and is meant for producing dry-saturated vapor; it is designed for 753 MW power and has a 40 years’ guarantee. In 2015 they plan to produce 4 PGV-1000M units, which are to work as a part of a 1000 MW B-428 M reactor system of the Tianwan NPP’s new unit.

First fast
On December 22 they completed the experimental industrial production stage of CEFR, Chinese fast breeder reactor system, which was brought to its 100% capacity and worked successfully during 144 hours. The 65 MW CEFR reactor was designed with the help of ROSATOM’s enterprises’ specialists: OKBM Afrikantov, OKB “GIDROPRESS” (both parts of ROSATOM’s machine-building division), TVEL fuel company, Institute of Physics and Power Engineering named after Leypunsky and Atomproyekt Engineering Company. In particular, OKBM designed, produced and installed such equipment as pumping and heat-exchange and some loading equipment, sodium technology devices, CPS actuators, reactor vessel elements etc. Along with this OKBM accompanied the reactor system equipment production in China.

“The basis of CEFR are the principles of Russian BN-600 fast breeder reactor system, the reactor design project was made in Russia and further Chinese specialists used it to design buildings and facilities, balance of plant. This work’s successful completion creates favorable prerequisites for the further cooperation of ROSATOM and the PRC in nuclear energy development”, – said Vladimir Sedakov, BN-800 Project Chief Engineer, CEFR project coordinator.