The containment pre-stressing system is part of the inner containment of the reactor building. It consists of 126 tendons of high strength strands made of seven wires 5 mm diameter. This system significantly enhances the durability and reliability of the reactor building, ASE noted.
Specialists from representative office of OOO Trest RosSEM (part of Rosatom Engineering Division) in Belarus have completed the pre-stressing of all the tendons at the initial controlled force level. “The completeness of the pre-stressing system is one of the compulsory conditions for the performance of the next operation - leak-tightness and strength testing of the containment”, pointed out Sergey Olontsev, senior vice-president for management of Russian projects, AO IK ASE. All these operations are performed within the framework of the preparation of the systems and equipment of the reactor compartment for cold and hot run”.
Belarusian NPP design envisages two containments - the inner and the outer ones. The inner containment is an element of the passive safety system that prevents the leakage of radioactive substances into the environment in the event of hypothetical accidents. The outer containment, jointly with the inner containment, serves as physical protection against natural and man-caused external impacts, including earthquakes and hurricanes.
