Concreting of the turbine hall floor slab at the 18-metre elevation has been completed at unit 4 of the Akkuyu NPP under construction in Türkiye. A skilled workforce of 120 people working across two shifts poured 1,801 cubic metres of concrete to create a robust horizontal support structure designed to handle intense dynamic loads.
The newly laid slab will serve as the floor of the turbine hall. This level provides engineers and operators with direct access to maintain core machinery like the turbine, generator, and barring gear. With the slab cast, crews at Akkuyu Nukleer have already transitioned to the next stage and are preparing the foundations for the main turbine-generator set. This phase requires erecting reinforcement cages with 308 tonnes of steel and installing 69 tonnes of embedded anchor assemblies.
The plant will eventually host four Russian-designed VVER-1200 reactors. The pouring of first concrete for unit 1 took place in April 2018, for unit 2 in June 2020, for unit 3 in March 2021, and for unit 4 in July 2022. Rosatom is constructing the reactors according to a build-own-operate model. Work continues at the facilities of all four units and auxiliary structures as well as a new town for plant operators.
Construction was recently completed at unit 1, which is currently undergoing cold and hot commissioning tests. At units 2&3, mechanical installation and heavy component assembly (such as the turbine generator stator) are underway. Unit 4 is moving out of civil structural phases into heavy equipment foundation preparation.
Earlier in September, Rosatom Director Alexey Likhachev visited the plant site and inspected the readiness of the control system at unit 1 in preparation for commissioning. He was accompanied by the Board Chairman of project company Akkuyu Nukleer, Anton Dedusenko as well as Director General Sergey Butskikh and First Deputy Director and Technical Director, Andrey Zhukov.
“Our task is to complete this stage as soon as possible and obtain an operating licence before starting launch operations at the end of the year,” said Likhachev. It is already clear that this is a unit that works, not station under construction.”
