JSC Akkuyu Nuklear has announced the completion of concrete pouring of the reactor and turbine buildings' foundation slabs at unit 2 of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant under construction in Mersin province, in southern Turkey. The 4800 MWe plant will comprise four VVER1200 reactors and is expected to meet about 10% of Turkey's electricity needs. Rosatom’s first build-own-operate venture, the USD20 billion project is based on an inter-governmental agreement signed between Russia and Turkey in May 2010. 

More than 17,000 cubic meters of concrete have been poured into the reactor building's foundation. The area of the concrete slab is 6864 square meters, while its height and depth are 2.6 m and over 8 m, respectively.

"To ensure the maximum strength of the slab, the foundation contains 2451 tonnes of rebars, which is equivalent to a third of the weight of all the metal structures of the Eiffel Tower," JSC Akkuyu Nuklear said, adding, "A metal rigid frame is used to keep the rebars in their specified position."

The weight of the fully operational reactor building is about 470,000 tonnes, which means the foundation will "reliably bear a weight that is twice as much as the largest cruise liner in the world", the company said. The reactor building foundation slab is also "highly earthquake-resistant", it added.

Around 3200 tonnes of reinforcement steel bars are embedded into the turbine building foundation, with 363 supporting frames providing additional reinforcement of the slab.

The area of the concrete slab is 5814 square metres, and the basement depth falls within range of -12.5 m to an elevation of -7.1 m. The foundation slab’s height varies within that range from 5.4 m to 2 m.

The turbine building contains systems and equipment related to power generation: the turbine plant, the deaerator (the apparatus for water purification from trace gases), feedwater pumps and auxiliary equipment. The turbine building is a part of the secondary circuit where thermal steam power is converted into rotation energy and then into electric power in the generator. Turbine building safety requirements are as stringent as for any other NPP facility although the environment in the secondary circuit is not radioactive.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News