Another huge concrete pour completed
Some 722m3 of concrete has been poured for the Unit 1 inner containment structure, which will sit around the reactor building. Teams worked around the clock to prepare the area for the 27-hour operation, installing more than 330 tonnes of reinforcement and more than 200 embedded plates. The inner containment is a pre-stressed reinforced concrete structure that uses a post-tensioning system. This means that the concrete is poured before stressing the tendons, the process that gives the structure the load-bearing strength it needs.
Tanks arrive via site jetty
Precision-built nuclear grade Auxiliary Steam Generator (ASG) tanks have arrived on site. The tanks were moved by sea from Middlesbrough and arrived via the HPC jetty. Building them in the Darchem factory and shipping them, rather than making them on site meant the tanks could be built quicker and the teammates responsible for them could stay close to home with all the engineering support they needed on hand. The move was handled by Osprey Logistics, with the tanks’ panels arriving in ‘flat-pack’ form, ready for assembly.
Tunnel boring continues
Emmeline, the largest of the tunnel boring machines, is currently mining 33m under the Bristol Channel to create a tunnel that will act as part of the water cooling system. It will take water away from the reactor and back out to the Bristol Channel. Launched in August 2020, Emmeline has been operated by three separate shifts around the clock, with the support of the rest of the HPC marine works team.
Taken from The Point July 2021