Another construction milestone has been reached at Hinkley Point C, with the final concrete pours now complete for the nuclear power station’s six cooling water tunnel heads. The head structures – created at the project’s offsite manufacturing facility in Avonmouth – will cap the three cooling water tunnels currently being bored by three 1,500t tunnel boring machines under the Bristol Channel. There are two 3.5km intake tunnels and one 1.8km outfall tunnel. The four intake heads are 44m long, 8m high and weigh 4,650t. Meanwhile, the two outfall heads weigh 3,500t each. Balfour Beatty tunnelling and marine project director Roger Frost emphasised the complexity of the concrete pour, a technique used to quickly and efficiently pour nuclear grade concrete into complex rebar structures. “I can’t stress enough that completing the final pour for the heads really is a feat of engineering,” he said. “One that not only means that we can successfully move to the next phase of our works but one that required significant skill to ensure that each concrete pour was to the exacting specifications for the nuclear grade structures. With 125,000 individual reinforcing bars in each intake head – there was no room for error.”
New Civil Engineer 13th April 2021 read more »
With up to 150 different roles employed on the Somerset site, Greg Pitcher speaks to EDF’s skills lead on how the Hinkley Point C build will set up a pipeline of training that should benefit the construction industry for years to come.
Construction News 12th April 2021 read more »