Rooppur nuclear plant: Dome construction at Unit 1 begins 

The initial construction or pre-assembly of the outer containment dome at unit 1 of Rooppur nuclear power plant has begun. 

Assembly work and subsequent construction and concreting are being carried out by specialists of Trest RosSEM (part of the Engineering Division of Rosatom), reports Nuclear Engineering International magazine Friday (13 May). 

"Installation of the NZO dome is the final stage of construction work at the construction of the power unit. It opens up an opportunity for the arrangement of structures and equipment for passive heat removal systems and is an important step towards the start of a physical start-up," said Alexei Deriy, Vice President of JSC ASE, Director of the Rooppur construction project.

The stage of preparation, assembly, installation and concreting of the dome is generally one of the longest during the construction of a unit, lasting 1151 days. 

To reduce the time for this stage, a special project has been launched aimed at reducing the time to 584 days.

The dome of the consists of two parts: lower and upper ("skirt" and "skullcap"). 

The lower part is formed from 12 separate segments, the total weight of each of which is 18 tons with reinforcement. 

The dome part consists of 17 of the same segments. 

The entire dome will be completely assembled on the ground, after which the lower part will be mounted at elevation 48.88 metres, After its alignment and fixing, the upper part will be mounted at elevation 57.14 metres. 

After installation of both parts, the dome will be concreted.