MOSCOW, November 11. /TASS/. The construction of the outer containment, one of the main safety systems of the reactor building of Unit 1 at the Akkuyu NPP has been completed, the press service of Akkuyu Nuclear JSC, an enterprise of the Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom, reported.

"The builders of Akkuyu NPP completed the operation of concreting the dome part of the outer containment of the reactor building of Unit 1. Two tower cranes, six concreting booms, and 34 mixer trucks were involved in the work. Concreting of the outer containment dome was accomplished in four stages and took 104 days. A total of 3,511 cubic meters of high-strength self-compacting concrete mix was poured into this part of the outer containment," the press release says.

According to Sergey Butckikh, Akkuyu Nuclear JSC Chief Executive Officer, completion of concreting of the outer containment will give us the opportunity to start installation of another important component of NPP safety - the passive heat removal system.

The outer containment of the reactor building is made of reinforced concrete and is designed to withstand the strongest natural impacts including earthquakes up to magnitude 9 (MSK-64 scale) and hurricanes up to 60 meters per second, according to the press release.

"Reactor buildings of modern Russian-designed power units with VVER-1200 reactors are equipped with a system of double (outer and inner) containments. They guarantee a high level of safety of the nuclear plant. Inside the outer containment there is an inner containment. It ensures air-tightness of the reactor plant location area and also serves as a support for pipelines and polar crane," the company says.

Akkuyu NPP is the first nuclear power plant being built in Turkey. The Akkuyu NPP project includes four power units equipped with Generation 3+ VVER reactors of Russian design. The capacity of each power unit will be 1200 MW. Akkuyu NPP is the first project in the global nuclear industry being implemented according to the Build-Own-Operate model.