Prestressed cable system in place to protect first unit of Belarusian nuclear power plant

The installation of the prestressed cable system, which will become part of the protective shell of the first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant, has been completed, BelTA learned from representatives of ASE Company (the general designer and the general contractor of the project to build the nuclear power plant, the engineering division of the Russian state nuclear industry corporation Rosatom).

The prestressed cables are part of the internal protective shell of the reactor building. The system includes 126 bundles of high-tensile prestressed concrete strands made of seven wires with the diameter of 5mm. The system will greatly improve the resilience and reliability of the reactor building.

Specialists of the Belarusian branch of OOO Trest RosSEM (part of Rosatom's engineering division) have finished straining all the strands with the initial controlled tension. “The prestressed cable system needs to be ready before we can proceed with the next responsible operation – testing the resilience and the hermetic sealing capacity of the protective shell of the reactor building,” noted Sergei Olontsev, Senior Vice President for Managing Russian Projects of ASE Company. “All these operations are done to prepare systems and equipment of the reactor compartment for cold and hot running tests.”

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is designed with two protective shells of the reactor building – an internal shell and an external one. The internal one is a passive safeguard designed to keep radioactive substances inside in an emergency. The external protective shell together with the internal one offers physical protection against natural and man-caused external impacts, including earthquakes and hurricanes.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is being built using the Russian standard Generation III+ design AES-2006 near Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. The first power-generating unit is scheduled for commissioning in 2019, with the second one to go online in 2020.

BelTA