The concrete dome for the Unit 2 Reactor Containment Building (RCB) at the Barakah nuclear power plant construction site has been completed, a major milestone in the four-reactor build for the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), the project's communications office said Tuesday.
The dome is the final structural component of the RCB, which now measures more than 70 meters in height, which is approximately 230 feet high. It would be a construction milestone for any project, given the robust, safety-oriented building involves thick concrete walls and heavy reinforcing steel, making a nuclear plant's containment buildings among the strongest structures in the world, ENEC noted.
The completed dome is measures 51.4 meters (169 feet) in diameter, 24 meters (78.7 feet) in height and weighs approximately 9,000 metric tons. It was constructed in nine stages, ENEC said.
The next phase of work on the RCB will be installation of the containment post tensioning system, which is used for pre-stressing the concrete structure. This will be followed by a three-month structural integrity test.
Installation of the reactor coolant system piping, connecting the Reactor Vessel (RV) with the reactor coolant pumps and the steam generators was completed in February. In addition, all major components of the turbo-generator, including the moisture separator-reheaters has been delivered to the site and installed. Workers are currently setting and aligning various components.
ENEC said Bakarah Unit 1 is now more than 87 percent complete, while Unit 2 is 68 percent complete. Unit 3 is 47 percent complete and Unit 4 is 29 percent complete. Putting all that together, the entire four-reactor project is now 62 percent complete based on major construction milestones, ENEC said.
“Pending regulatory approval, the four units in Barakah are scheduled to be delivered by 2020, providing safe, clean, reliable and efficient nuclear energy to the United Arab Emirate grid,” ENEC said in a statement.
The power plant, when it is up and running, is expected to meet 25 percent of the UAE's electricity demand.