MINSK, 11 June (BelTA) – The installation of a prestressed cable system, which will become part of the protective shell of the second unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant, has been completed, BelTA learned from representatives of the public relations department of 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 work to install the prestressed cable system was done by specialists of OOO STS in seven stages. Each of the 126 bundles was strained from two sides using hydraulic jacks with the force of over 1,200 tonnes. The work to prestress horizontal and vertical bundles proceeded simultaneously and took 51 days.
The prestressed cable system is designed to greatly increase the durability of the internal protective shell, which among other things has to keep the internal volume of the reactor building sealed at all times, including emergencies.
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 with two VVER-1200 reactors is being built using a Russian design, which fully meets international safety norms and recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The first power-generating unit is scheduled for commissioning in 2019, with the second one to go online in 2020.
ASE (the engineering division of the Russian state nuclear industry corporation Rosatom) has been created by merging the industry's leading companies: AO IK ASE (Nizhny Novgorod), AO Atomstroyexport (Moscow), AO Atomenergoproject (Moscow), and AO Atomproject (St Petersburg).
