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900 Ton Containment Vessel Bottom Head Installed At Vogtle 3

Posted by Unknown on from the awe-inspiring-scale dept.

Yesterday, Georgia Power announced that they successfully lifted the first part of the Vogtle Unit 3 containment vessel into place. From World Nuclear News: "The component — measuring almost 40 meters wide, 12 meters tall and weighing over 900 tons — was assembled on-site from pre-fabricated steel plates. The cradle for the containment vessel was put in place on the unit's nuclear island in April. The completed bottom head was raised by a heavy lift derrick and placed on the cradle on 1 June, Georgia Power announced." Georgia Power has a pretty cool gallery of high resolution construction photos (the bottom head is the background on my XBMC machine). Below the fold there is a video of the crane moving the bottom head into place.

4 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Bottom head? by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 5, Funny

    Am I supposed to know what they are talking about here? Where is this going? Why? What is a bottom head used for? Vogtle Unit 3?? I feel like Lord Helmet in Spaceballs shouting "WHO??" in confusion just before his mask falls.

    --
    "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
    1. Re:Bottom head? by firewrought · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Unit 3 means it is the third reactor in the power plant. Vogtle is the name of the power plant (probably the name of the place it is located in). Apparently there are already 2 units installed there with Generation II reactors and they are now in the process of construction another two units with Generation III reactors of the Westinghouse AP1000 design.

      Vogtle was President/Chairman of Southern Company, Georgia Power's parent company. (Southern tends to name most of their plants after company bigwigs.) Apparently, he was a real POW who inspired the motorcycle dude in The Great Escape.

      --
      -1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
  2. Re:What? Where? by malakai · · Score: 5, Informative

    The key points missing from this summary is that this is the first Generation III+ reactor being built in the US. The only reason it was allowed to be built was it's an existing site, and had already planned reactor 3 and 4. There's still a general no build moratorium on new reactor sites in the US.

    This is the AP1000 which is sort of the "So you want to run a nuclear reactor, For Dummies" type of reactor.

    They are very difficult to break. Even if operators do nothing, the reactor will go through a set of procedures ( at times with explosive bolts) to disable the reaction and cool for 72 hours. After that, a helicopter will need to drop water on the top of the tank to keep the gravity well fed.

    See more info here on wiki .

    --
    -Malakai
    A Dragon Lives in my Garage
  3. Re:Crane by Antipater · · Score: 5, Interesting
    /highfive

    As someone who works on cranes myself, I was more interested in the lift than in the actual thing being constructed. Got any specs on that sheerleg? It looks like a monster. My eyes aren't good enough to count the number of falls, but just the boom structure has me ballparking its capacity at what, 2000 tons?

    --
    Everything is better with chainsaws.