Reactor vessel of Belarusian nuclear power plant in for acceptance inspection in late 2015

An acceptance inspection of a reactor vessel of the Belarusian nuclear power plant is scheduled to take place in late 2015. The information was released by Sergei Zaitsev, Head of the Office for Safety Assessment of Systems and Equipment of Nuclear Installations of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department (Gosatomnadzor) of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry, during a press conference held in BelTA’s press center on 17 June.

“Next week Gosatomnadzor representatives together with specialists of the enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant will visit the Volgodonsk-based enterprise Atommash where a reactor vessel for the Belarusian nuclear power plant is being manufactured. An acceptance inspection of the reactor vessel is scheduled for late 2015,” said the official.

The reactor is a vertical cylinder with an elliptical bottom. The reactor core and the internal components will be located inside. The reactor is hermetically sealed by a lid that also bears the actuators and mechanisms meant to regulate the process and protect the reactor. The lid also contains pipe sleeves that will be used to feed cables from internal reactor control sensors.

The Volgodonsk-based enterprise Atommash is a branch of AEM Technologies, which is part of Atomenergomash, the mechanical engineering division of the Russian nuclear industry corporation Rosatom.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is a project to build an AES-2006 type nuclear power plant 18km away from Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. The Belarusian nuclear power plant will have two power-generating units with the total output capacity of up to 2,400MW (2x1,200MW). In line with the general contract for building the nuclear power plant the first power-generating unit is scheduled for commissioning in 2018, with the second one to go online in 2020.