“The second reactor vessel for Belarusian NPP is manufactured in full compliance with the schedule. Our expertise and high-precision equipment guarantee unconditional quality of this demanding component and its timely delivery as agreed upon with the customer,” said Igor Kotov, CEO of AEM Technology, a parent company of Atommash.
The production technology deserves the reader’s attention. The lower semi-vessel of the reactor consists of two shell rings and an elliptical bottom. The components were assembled on a special welding skid. Two ring seams were welded during 15 days, with the welded seam constantly heated. After the welding was finished, the seams were heated up to 300oC and the semi-vessel was placed in the heat-treatment furnace for several days for steel to obtain required properties. The vessel steel is heat-treated at 650oC.
Quality of each seam is controlled after the treatment. Then internal welded seams will be prepared for corrosion-resistant deposition. The deposition on internal seams of the upper semi-vessel has been almost completed by now.
The first VVER-1200 vessel was shipped to Belarusian NPP Unit 1 last autumn. This was a new milestone for the Russian nuclear industry since the new reactor vessel was the first produced by Atommash for almost 30 years and the first made within Rosatom Group (in Russia, all reactor vessels had been manufactured by Izhorskiye Zavody in Saint Petersburg).
In late 2015, the 13-meter high reactor vessel was delivered to the construction site. It weighs more than 330 tons and is 4.5 meters in diameter. Atommash, the Soviet industrial major, was built in the 1970s to manufacture nuclear power equipment. In the post-Soviet period, it went through hard times and almost lost its engineering competencies. In 2012, Atommash joined the engineering division of Rosatom. Soon afterwards, a recovery program was initiated to re-launch the production of nuclear equipment. Program investments in 2012–2015 reached almost 2 billion rubles. “The plant has recovered its competencies as a core nuclear equipment producer after a long break. The restoration of Atommash was Rosatom’s priority,” noted Andrei Nikipelov, CEO of Atomenergomash.
The Belarusian NPP is constructed with Russia’s involvement near Ostrovets, a small town in the Grodno Region of Belarus. The nuclear power plant will have two VVER-1200 reactor units with a total capacity of 2,400 MWe. The nuclear station is based on the AES-2006 design (a standard Russian project design for Generation 3+ nuclear plants with greater economic efficiency and higher safety). Unit 1 is scheduled for commissioning in 2018, to be followed by Unit 2 in 2020.
Russia strictly follows the localization guidelines set out at the project take-off. Belarusian companies do more than 80% of construction on the site, and Rosatom plans to maintain this level in the future while increasing the headcount.
