Milestone for Barakah 1 containment

Tuesday, 13 January 2015

The concrete dome for Barakah 1 has been completed and the unit is on track to start operations in 2017, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) has announced. 

Workers celebrate the completion of Barakah 1's containment dome (Image: ENEC)

The dome is the final structural component of the reactor containment building which will house the nuclear reactor itself. Designed to confine and contain radiation, work began on the steel-reinforced concrete building in July 2012 with the fabrication of the basemat. The containment liner plate, which forms the inner floor, wall and ceiling of the reactor containment building, was then fabricated and installed in 19 stages over a period of ten months. The dome, which measures 51.4 metres in diameter, 24 metres in height and weighs approximately 9000 tonnes, has been constructed over the past five months in nine stages.

ENEC CEO Mohamed Al Hammadi praised the commitment to quality and safety shown by the thousands of workers involved in the project. "We are proud to maintain our track record of achieving key construction milestones safely and on time," he said. The unit is now more than 60% complete.

The next phase of work on the containment building will involve installation of the containment post tensioning system, which is used for pre-stressing the concrete structure, followed by a three-month structural integrity test.

Barakah will comprise four Korean-designed APR-1400 reactors and is being built by a consortium led by the Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco). Construction work is also under way at units 2 and 3, which are scheduled to start up in 2018 and 2019. Work has yet to begin on the fourth Barakah unit ,which is expected to start up in 2020.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News