On November 8, an Act on Facility Completion and Operational Readiness “Reinforcement and encapsulation of building structures of ChNPP Generation II functioning as NSC enclosure” (Construction of NSC Enclosure) was signed.
The activities lasted 35 months. Mr. Oscar McNeil, Manager of SIP (Shelter Implementation Plan) Project Management Unit, emphasized that performance of this project gave an opportunity to ensure NSC Arch sliding in November 2016.
In the opinion of Mr. Andrii Bilyk, Head of the Facility’s Admission Committee, Chief Engineer (Technical Director) of ChNPP, the conditions under which the activities were performed can be compared with those ones under which ChNPP Unit 4 accident elimination was performed in 1986: “People worked under extremely severe radiation conditions, but with a substantial difference that now all activities were carried out on a scheduled basis with observance of safety standards and requirements”.
The project activities were performed by KSK Consortium consisting of three Ukrainian organizations, namely, Kyiv Research and Design Institute “Energoproject”, Institute of Building Constructions, and Institute for Safety Problems of NPPs.
Construction was carried out by “Shelter Consortium” consisting of such companies as “Kyivmetrobud”, Ukrenergomontazh”, “Ukrbud” and “Ukrbudmontazh”.
“The project was completed at high level despite very tight deadlines. All activities were performed in accordance with schedule, and there were no failures or delays at any job site”, said Mr. Viktor Popovskii, Deputy Project Manager of SIP PMU. And he added: “We have to give proper respect to the team which was engaged in exploratory design activities, as well as ChNPP departments actively participated in preparing the initial design data. The operating systems came across to the construction area to be considered in design documentation and preserved as for their functional capability upon construction completion”.
Work performance site will be released under project completion in near future and decontaminated, if appropriate, following which the contracting personnel involved in the project will be demobilized.
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Project “Reinforcement and encapsulation of building structures of ChNPP Generation II functioning as NSC enclosure” ensured creation of required building structures and reconstruction of all existing systems of available enclosure and control systems of the Shelter, including ventilation system, fire-fighting system, etc.
Since the activities were performed under complicated radiation conditions, considering proximity of the destroyed reactor, all workers involved in these activities passed special training, and health condition of people who performed jobs under the project was monitored by Biomed program. Under Biomed program, 2,500 persons were examined, 1,500 persons were allowed to work for health reasons and 1,300 persons were employed.
To construct walls of NSC Enclosure within ChNPP Unit 4 Turbine Hall, over 1,800 m3 of reinforced concrete structures, out-of-service pipelines and process equipment remained after 1986 accident were dismantled, and 600 m2 of roof coating were dismantled as well, and 14,000 m³ of concrete and 1,450 tons of reinforcing steel were placed.
