Vessel delivered for Tianwan 4

Wednesday, 2 March 2016

The reactor pressure vessel for unit 4 of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China's Jiangsu province has been delivered to the construction site.

The vessel is unloaded at the Tianwan site (Image: CNNC)

The component - weighing 323 tonnes and measuring over 11 meters in length and 4.5 meters in diameter - arrived at the site on 24 February, five days ahead of schedule, China National Nuclear Corporation announced yesterday.

The pressure vessel was produced in Russia by OMZ subsidiary Izhorskiye Zavody under a contract awarded in 2010 for the manufacture of the vessels for both Tianwan units 3 and 4. The vessel was transported from St Petersburg on an ocean-going transport ship which delivered it to the port of Lianyungang in Jiangsu province. It was then unloaded and put onto a barge for the remainder of the journey to the Tianwan site.

Tianwan 4 is the second of two AES-91 VVER-1000 units designed by Gidropress, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom. Two similar units have been in commercial operation at the Tianwan site since 2007. AtomStroyExport, another Rosatom subsidiary, is the main contractor, supplying the nuclear island. Construction work began on unit 3 in December 2012, with unit 4 following in September 2013. The units are expected to start operation in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News