At the production site of Russia’s Izhora plant in St Petersburg (part of Rosatom’s Engineering Division), key welding has been completed for the reactor pressure vessel intended for unit 1 of Egypt’s El Dabaa NPP. The weld connected certain parts of the component; the operation lasted 10 days with continuous heating of the seam zone. Machine builders used about 2 tonnes of flux and more than 1.5 tonnes of special wire during operation.
After welding, the reactor body will be submitted to a heat treatment process, and then the whole range of control measures will be carried out to check the weld areas: radiographic flaw detection, ultrasound and capillary control.
To increase the reliability and operational efficiency of nuclear power plants, the enterprises of Rosatom’s Engineering Division continuously improve structural materials and welding technologies, increasing radiation resistance and reducing the number of welds, which ae a weak area in any design. This has already made it possible to increase the life of 3 + generation reactors to 60-80 years. In the future, the use of new materials is expected to increase operating life to 100 years.
The production of equipment for the reactor hall of El Dabaa unit 1 ais underway at several of Rosatom’s production sites at different stages of manufacture including products for the steam generators for all four units of the NPP. The reactor vessel for unit 1 is planned to be
El Dabaa NPP will comprise four units with generation III+ VVER-1200 pressurised water reactors. The NPP is being constructed in accordance with contracts that entered into force in 2017. The $30bn project is mainly financed through a $25bn Russian loan. Rosatom will supply nuclear fuel throughout the lifecycle of the plant, arrange for the training of the Egyptian personnel, and assist in the operation and maintenance of the plant for the first 10 years. The reference plant for El Dabaa is the Leningrad-II NPP. Construction of all four units is planned for completion by 2028-2029, and Egypt expects that the NPP will reach full capacity by 2030.
