Concreting has began at the cooling tower of unit 1 of Russia’s Kursk-II NPP, the plant said on 12 April. The cooling tower will be the tallest in Russia at 179 metres. “The design of the evaporative cooling tower at Kursk-II will include the construction of 115 tiers,” said Alexei Buldygin, head of the Construction Department. “Concreting of all levels will be carried out using automated self-propelled formwork, which will significantly speed up the process and increase the overall strength of the structure. By the end of 2021, it is planned to concretise 65 tiers of the shell and raise the cooling tower structure to a level of 105 metres.”

To concrete the entire shell of the exhaust tower, about 14,000 cubic metres of concrete will be required. Up to the fifth tier, the concrete mix will be supplied using concrete pumps. For the concreting of the sixth and subsequent tiers, the proven technology will be used with the use of a crane mounted in the centre of the cooling tower. The concreting work is carried out by the specialised construction organisation SMU No.1 (a subsidiary of Rosatom’s ASE JSC).

Work on the construction of the cooling tower began at the end of 2019. The beginning of the concreting of the shell was preceded by the installation of 100 columns of the inclined colonnade and the concreting of the lower support ring - the base on which the shell of the exhaust tower is being erected. The tower is expected to be completed by 2024.