December 9, 2021, Büyükeceli, Mersin Province, Turkey – Construction workers have begun constructing the foundation slab for the pump station of Akkuyu NPP Unit 1. Reinforcement and installation of formwork is underway at the site; around 400 people are involved in the works.
Pump stations are a complex of facilities designed to supply seawater to the main process shops of the nuclear power plant and are a part of the modern high-tech system of the shore hydraulic engineering structures of Akkuyu NPP. A total of four pump stations will be built, one for each NPP Unit.
The depth of the foundation slab of the pump station is at an elevation of 16.5 meters below sea level. In order to withstand the pressure of seawater, the construction is being carried out under the protection of 1 meter thick concrete diaphragms. Their walls are reliably held by three rows of special fasteners – anchor ties. There are 384 such ties in the diaphragm walls, 3 rows of 128 in each. The height of the station building superstructure will be over 11 meters, and the basic process equipment and the water intake part will be located underground.
Sergei Butckikh, First Deputy Chief Executive Officer of AKKUYU NUCLEAR JSC, Director of the NPP under construction, commented the beginning of Unit 1 pump station foundation construction: “Development of the foundation pit for the pump station of Unit 1 started in December last year. A whole complex of preparatory work preceded the construction of the pit: filling of the water area, construction of barrier walls, formation of a storm protection embankment. After that, a pit 22 meters deep was dug, and a foundation base – concrete pad – was laid to its bottom to the elevation of -16.5 meters. Now we proceed from the preparatory stage to the direct construction of the pump station. About 30 thousand cubic meters of concrete are to be laid into the foundation slab of the building. In terms of complexity, the facility can be compared to the construction of a small hydroelectric power plant, so the design of the pump stations required serious efforts from a team of qualified Russian and Turkish engineers, and the construction is in progress using the most advanced technologies.”
At the beginning of 2022, the construction of the foundation slab of the pump station for Akkuyu NPP Unit 2 will begin. Complexly configured water pipelines for the main cooling pumps will be formed there, too. A special formwork will also be used for this, which will allow the work to have the necessary precision.
At the same time, preparations continue for the construction of the pump stations for Akkuyu NPP Units 3 and 4.
