Dear friends, You are on a page dedicated to a tremendous event, such as the world’s largest batch of equipment being shipped off to the two nuclear power plants at one stroke. Here you can keep yourselves informed of its progress, and learn at the same time a number of new things, such as for example, Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation’s business partners involved in complex units manufacturing, owing to which we are not dependent unlike many other countries, on imported energy; Russia’s having secured its leadership in nuclear technology for many years to come; these technologies’ actual significance for the mankind’s future.

Vessels with a record cargo of 3,400 tons will slowly and majestically sail from Volgodonsk to St. Petersburg, so you are welcome to study the route, come and take a look at the treasure of the Russian industry. Seeing once is better than hearing or reading twice. So, get onboard to take pictures of them, be proud of them, since they are our history. The reactor pressure vessels and steam generators are installed on an open platform.  These giants are visible from far away.

There is Atommash, an industrial giant in the relatively small city of Volgodonsk,  that belongs to Atomenergomash, the Rosatom machine-building division. The plant was built specifically to produce all equipment for nuclear power plants in one place. Previously, the sets were shared between several plants.

The manufacturing complex, where the casing and steam generators were produced, occupies an area of 67 hectares. The total length of the shipped equipment is 134 meters, which is similar the height of a 45-storey building or the length of a 10-car train.

Volgodonsk stands on the Tsimlyansk man-made reservoir. This is part of the system that connected the five water areas, such as: the Caspian, the Baltic, the White, the Black and the Azov seas. It is an optimal through-passage for Atommash’s heavy and oversized products that have be delivered to construction sites both in Russia and abroad. To move the cargo from the plant to the special berth, traffic is blocked on the streets and trolleys are raised. The self-propelled conveyor’s trip takes two hours. It travels at night for the convenience of residents but still, there are those who want to see this show with their own eyes.

Atommash is already a world-famous enterprise, but on April 21, 2023, it made history by shipping the sets of equipment for two nuclear power plants simultaneously. These are two reactor vessels and eight steam generators for the Kudankulam NPP power unit No. 5 in India and the Tianwan NPS power unit No. 7 in China.

Just to make no mistake about the scale of the event and Atommash’s record,  the reactor vessel is manufactured for many a day (and many a year). The technology of its manufacture requires time and operational excellence. The same goes for steam generators. This equipment will operate flawlessly for 60 years, or even for 100 years, if treated and maintained properly.

It’s not just an issue of durability, but operating conditions as well: NPP is a nuclear facility that has to be utterly reliable and impenetrable,  allowing no escape for a single neutron.  And the Russian VVER GenIII+ reactors have just the same concept, i.e. safe and no-failure operation.

The heavy NPP equipment will be delivered by sea. The vessel will depart from St. Petersburg, go through the Baltic to the North Sea and the Atlantic, and proceed through the Gibraltar and the Mediterranean Sea to the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean. Just look at the map to see that Eurasia’s underbelly says a lot alone. The 19th century Suez Canal is not designed for such traffic, it is rather narrow and shallow, there are always traffic jams there. But at the moment, it is a conventional sea route to deliver Russian nuclear equipment to the Indian and Chinese customers.

The reactor vessel and steam generators are the main equipment of the nuclear power unit.  It is apparent from the name itself that the reactor is a place where a fission chain reaction takes place, which is accompanied by the enormous production of heat. The heat heats up the water up to 300 degrees, the steam generators turn it into steam, the steam rotates the turbine. The turbine’s mechanical energy is transformed into the electrical one. The pattern is quite simple, but remember that the water temperature, nuclear fuel and steam pressure – all of them bring about extreme conditions. Accordingly, the reactor equipment and technologies can be somehow compared to its space counterparts.

The parameters of VVER-1200 and VVER-1000 are similar. For example, a 12-meter reactor vessel to be installed at the Kudankulam NPP, weighs 320 tons, to say nothing of its internals, it’s just a thick-walled steel vessel welded from several rings and a bottom.

It is difficult to imagine how this mass is handled by steel-workers and machine builders. Making the vessel is a time-consuming process, including steel smelting, forging, hardening, cooling, re-hardening, machining, welding, X-ray, to avoid the slightest defect, all in all about 800 operations. At the output, we have perfect geometrical shapes. Take a minute to watch the video and feel pride in our industry.

The VVER has one reactor and four steam generators. They weigh more than 300 tons each and are 15m long. Atommash shipped the sets for the two NPPs at one stroke. Maybe this is not a great deed, but however there is something heroic in it (c). Jokes aside, we have set a world record, and it is unlikely that anyone can equal it, except for Atommash itself.

More than 3,000 Atommash employees have worked on the equipment for the Kudankulam NPP and the Tianwan NPS. Here are some facts about how such work proceeds.

• The steam generator is stuffed with 11,000 heat exchange coils having a total length of over 100 km.
• There are two headers of the primary circuit in the steam generator casing. One header weighs over 16 tons, like eight motor cars.
• There are 104 meters of welded joints per one steam generator casing.
• Hydrotesting of the steam generator lasts for five to six hours.
• The reactor vessel consists of shells, i.e. ring-shaped semi-finished metallurgical blanks, and the bottom. The bottom is manufactured as follows: a forged semicircular blank is unbent to form a sheet, subsequently heated to 1040℃ and sent to a 15,000 tnf press where it is shaped into an ellipse.
• There are 66 meters of welded joints per one reactor pressure vessel.
• The entire inner surface of the reactor pressure vessel is treated with an anti-corrosion surfacing which is 7–9, and somewhere up to 15mm thick.
• The reactor vessel is heat-treated for three days at a temperature of 650 ℃ so that the metal acquires special strength properties. When the reactor undergoes hydraulic tests, it is filled with distilled water heated to 100 ℃ and the maximum (24.5 MPa) pressure is created, which is 1.4 times higher than the working pressure. There should be no drop on the surface of the reactor vessel!

Power reactors were not invented in this country, although the world’s first nuclear power plant was built in the USSR,  in 1954. Technologies have improved since then, and Russian nuclear experts have now a large portfolio of exclusive technologies and know-how.

The NPP design and construction in Russia and abroad is the area of responsibility of Atomstroyexport, the Rosatom engineering division being the global leader in the number of orders and simultaneously constructed NPPs. We built the world’s first GenIII+ power unit at the Novovoronezh NPP, and other countries wanted the same. The design is based on the principle of natural safety, when the procedures for stopping the chain reaction do not depend on the power supply or operator’s actions. There is a melt trap installed under the reactor: if the incredible comes true and the reactor vessel cracks, the fuel will fall into a perdurable container. This is a smaller part of the engineering finds implemented in the VVER of the latest generation. But the construction itself needs to be talked about. The Russians do everything on time, which is very important for the budget. The sooner the NPP starts operating, the sooner expenses will be recovered and the customer will obtain low-cost and environmentally friendly nuclear energy. Well, you understand how much, for example, natural gas costs now, and how much the long-term construction is going to cost. Let’s take Olkiluoto NPP unit in Finland as the case in point: it was built by the European consortium for 18 years, and the cost of the project quadrupled over that period.

VVER-1000 and VVER-1200 are held in respect abroad, and Atommash’s sets are supplied to China and India. These are very advanced countries in terms of energy. It cannot be otherwise, since the emerging industry requires more and more energy there.

The Tianwan NPS sets an example of people’s friendship. Its construction was started by the Russians; the first four units have been operated for a long time, and the Chinese continue to order extra units. China is building its nuclear power plants on a mass scale, almost ahead of the whole world, since the Chinese have to reduce drastically the СO2-e emission and protect the environment. The most effective way is replacing coal-fired thermal power plants with incomparably more efficient and eco-friendly types of generation.

The four Tianwan NPS VVER-1000 units are in operation, another two VVER-1200 are under construction. The numbers indicate (very well, in fact) power in megawatts. Tuoketuo, the largest carbon power plant in China produces 6,720 MW. The Tianwan NPS surpasses it in terms of output, without burning fossil fuels or CO2 emissions.

India has a large nuclear construction programme, too. The state plan includes new units at the country’s largest Kudankulam nuclear power plant. Two VVER-1000 reactors are already operating there, another four ones remain to be built. This is a 100% Russian project elected by the Indians, although they own their own reactor technology, a little different though. But cooperation in the nuclear field adds much to both sides’ knowledge and experience.

Recently, India left behind China in terms of population. Both countries have been adding capacity for many years. To provide billions of citizens and industries with electricity, steady and large-scale generation is needed.

The Kudankulam NPP is located in the Tamil Nadu state that is the most urbanized India’s state ranking as the second industrial powerhouse and thus having the highest power energy demand. IT industry, machine-building and automobile industry (40% of Indian cars are produced in Tamil Nadu), ferrous metallurgy, and energy (a significant part of the electricity is supplied to neighboring states) are well-developed industry sectors.

The Tianwan NPS is located in Jiangsu Province, which holds the top spot in China’s economic development, agricultural and industrial output and social standards of living.  Jiangsu has developed mining and processing of rock salt, sulfur, phosphates, marble, oil, light and heavy industries, mechanical engineering and electronic engineering technologies. In recent years, the production of hybrid vehicles and electric cars has been extensively developing.