Installation of the metal structures of the outer containment dome for the reactor building of unit 1 at the Rooppur NPP in Bangladesh, has been completed, according to the Engineering Division of Rosatom (ASE). The upper part of the dome, which weighs 100 tons with a diameter 34.4 metres, was mounted in the design position at a height of 57.14 metres. The height of the structure is 63,910 metres, and will reach 64,500 metres after the dome is concreted.
“We have successfully completed the installation of the outer containment dome and will soon begin its concreting. After that, we will be able to proceed with the installation of passive heat removal systems (PHRS), which brings us much closer to the physical start-up of the power unit,” commented Alexei Deriy, Vice President of JSC ASE, Director of the project for the construction of Rooppur NPP.
Assembly, installation and concreting of the dome are carried out by specialists of the branch of Trest RosSEM (part of ASE). The installation was carried out in two stages. The lower part of the dome, weighing 200 tons and 46.3 metres in diameter, was installed in the design position the previous week. The outer containment is a significant localising safety system. The reinforced concrete structure protects the reactor plant from external influences and makes it possible to exclude the release of radioactivity into the environment in any situation.
The Rooppur plant is being built by Rosatom on the eastern bank of the Ganges River in Bangladesh’s Pabna district, about 160 km northwest of Dhaka. It will comprise two VVER-1200 reactors. In November 2011, Russia and Bangladesh signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the construction of the NPP and in mid-December 2015, a general contract was signed. In early 2017, the Russian government provided Bangladesh with a state loan of $11.38 billion to assist with the construction, which began in 2021.
Meanwhile, the Rosatom Technical Academy has started training Rooppur NPP specialists on a full-scale simulator at the on-site training centre. A month before the start of the training, Russian specialists were sent to the Rooppur
NPP to validate the training materials that will be used in training on the simulator, said the head of the Novovoronezh branch of the service of the director for the training of foreign personnel Sergey Lyulin. “We will train two groups of Bengali instructor personnel. The training of this category of specialists is structured similarly to the programme for unit shift supervisors. In addition to this, a course on instructor skills was held. After the end of the simulator training stage, internship will begin - the final stage. And only then will they be permitted to work independently. Then the Bangladeshi instructors themselves will be able to train their colleagues on the full-scale simulator.”
The Bengali power engineers all have completed specialised education: a diploma from the University of Bangladesh or, for the most part, a master's degree from The Moscow Electro-Physical Institute. Two years of programme training is then required to obtain the necessary knowledge and skills.
Image (left): Installation of outer containment at Rooppur Unit 1 (courtesy of Rosatom)
Image (right): The full-scale simulator at the on-site training centre at Rooppur NPP (courtesy of Rosatom)
