The recent installation of the main circulation circuit at Leningrad NPP-2 Unit 1 under construction took 113 days. With rapid development of technology, the same task at Rostov NPP Unit 4 took as little as 96 days. This period was enough to weld 28 joints of the main circulation circuit and heat-treat the seams for post-welding metal recovery.
Without compromising on quality, completion of the sophisticated task within a record short time was made possible thanks to accurate planning and step-by-step control of all operations on the construction site. “Assembly and welding operations at the reactor unit under construction are supervised at all times,” said Alexei Fedotov, Deputy Director for Capital Construction at Rostov NPP. “As the welding process went on, non-destructive testing experts, technical supervisors, auditors of the capital construction department, maintenance and operation engineers were supervising every step of how structures and equipment were prepared for welding. They checked compliance with welding technologies, performed visual inspection and measurements of seams and took part in removing defects.”
Nuclear construction goes massive, says Alexander Uvarov, a nuclear power expert and a chief editor of the Russian nuclear news portal AtomInfo.ru. This is particularly evidenced by a record fast installation at Rostov NPP Unit 4.Rosatom sets a strategic goal to launch the serial construction of nuclear power reactors both in Russia and abroad. Building reactors in series will reduce both time and costs, which is essential in order to make Rosatom more competitive on the nuclear plant construction market.
“The new record set at Rostov NPP Unit 4, with the main circulation circuit installed within less than 100 days, can be compared to making a 100 m race in less than 10 seconds,” Uvarov told RIA Novosti, a Russian news agency. “This is yet another proof that construction of Russian-designed VVER nuclear reactors becomes an off-the-shelf product.”
The main circulation circuit connects all the primary loop equipment – the reactor, steam generators and main circulation pumps. “Completion of the main circulation circuit welding means that we begin preparations for leak detection in the reactor piping scheduled for December 2016,” said Vitaly Mediakov, Vice President for Russian Projects of Rosatom’s engineering company NIAEP (a subsidiary of ASE).
The startup of Rostov NPP Unit 4 is scheduled for 2017.
