Currently, specialists of TITAN-2 Holding are completing the foundation slab of the catchwater basin and are installing an inclined colonnade – the base of the future 179-meter hydraulic structure at the same time.
As of today, 52 out of 100 design reinforced concrete columns have been installed. Each structure is over 13 meters long and 0.9 meters wide and weighs about 20 tons. Massive elements are installed at a specified angle using a specially designed jig, which allows to accurately withstand the design position. Installation is carried out one by one, with the subsequent binding of a pair of columns with one foundation, which ensures high reliability of the structure. The work involves a 150-ton Grove crane.
A large-scale preparation took place before this stage: pit excavation, submersion of bored and cast-and-place piles to a depth of up to 35 meters and construction of an annular pile cap 6 meters wide and 1.8 meters high. At the peak of installation of piles at the site, seven drilling rigs were simultaneously involved. A total of 22,269 m³ of concrete and 5,350 tons of reinforcement were spent on the construction of the pile field, pile cap and slab of the catchwater basin bottom. The full range of works on construction of the pile field was completed three months ahead of schedule.
Sergey Petkov, Project Manager for CIW, JSC CONCERN TITAN-2:
“The evaporative cooling tower is a unique engineering facility with a height of 55-storey building; each stage of its construction has its design features. Thanks to the well-coordinated work of the team, we not only coped with the most difficult stage of the pile field arrangement and ultra-dense reinforcement of the annular pile cap, but also completed it ahead of schedule. As of today, we are successfully completing the cycle of work on construction of the foundation slab of the catchwater basin. Currently our efforts are focused on installing the inclined colonnade and preparation for concreting the first tier of the tower enclosure.”
The evaporative cooling tower will be the tallest structure at the Leningrad NPP-2 site and one of the highest in the region, second only to St. Petersburg’s Lakhta Center in height. Its height will be 179 meters, the diameter of the base – about 150 meters. The structure is unique due to the fact that it narrows to 41 meters on the 89th tier of 115, and then expands again to 45–47 meters.
Subdivisions SMU-18 and SMU-16 of PJSC “NBD” are involved in the construction of the structure. A team of specialists who already have experience in construction of a similar cooling tower at the Kursk NPP-2 is involved in concreting the tower enclosure. Soon the reinforcing and installation of the first tier formwork will begin. The first concreting of the enclosure is scheduled for August. As the tower grows, the Terex crane will be built up as well, which will eventually become the tallest at the Leningrad NPP-2 construction site.
Information note from TITAN-2 Holding
TITAN-2 Holding (part of ROSATOM State Corporation) is one of the key participants in large-scale nuclear industry projects in Russia and abroad.
The Holding companies perform a full cycle of work: design, construction organization, construction, electric installation, commissioning of facilities.
Today, TITAN-2 is the general contractor of the construction of new power units of the Leningrad, Kola and Smolensk NPPs, participates in implementation of the PDEC “Breakthrough” project in Seversk, as well as in the largest international nuclear projects – Akkuyu NPP in Türkiye, Paks II NPP in Hungary and El-Dabaa NPP in Egypt.
New power units of the Leningrad NPP and the Kursk NPP-2, the Core Shared Research Facility Siberian Circular Photon Source (SKIF) in Novosibirsk, as well as the facilities of Innopolis in Tatarstan are among the projects completed by the Holding. The competencies of TITAN-2 are also in demand in construction of large industrial, research, social and infrastructural facilities.