Engineering teams have lifted the 423-tonne third and final steel liner ring into place at unit 2 of the Hinkley Point C NPP using giant crane, Big Carl. The steel ring, which is 11.6 metres in height and 47 metres in diameter, forms part of the inner containment wall of the reactor building and will now be encased in two layers of concrete.
The liner ring was prefabricated in a factory on site and also features supporting brackets for the Polar Crane Beam. This internal crane will rotate 360° above the reactor and be used for refuelling. The reactor building now only has the ‘lid’ to be placed on top, with the dome lift scheduled for next year.
The first reactor building was capped with its own dome last December and is ready for the reactor to be installed later this year. The teams at Hinkley Point C are using the lessons learned from building the first reactor unit to achieve efficiencies typically of between 20% and 30% on unit 2.
Big Carl is a ring-based crane designed and built by Belgian heavy-lifting company Sarens. The crane is named after the firm’s director of technical solutions, Carl Sarens.
Hinkley Point C is a two-unit, 3,200MWe EPR nuclear power station in Somerset being built by the Bouygues and Laing O’Rourke joint venture (Bylor JV) for client EDF Energy. Work is expected to be completed between 2029 and 2031.
