Project News

L&T creates history in nuclear construction

Erects Indias first-of-its-kind inner containment dome liner

Taking a giant leap towards modularization in

construction methodologies, L&Ts Heavy Civil
Infrastructure IC team at Kakrapar Atomic
Power Plant lifted to position and installed a
355 t Inner Containment (IC) dome liner as a
single unit.

9th June was a red letter day for L&T-ites at

Kakrapar as they witnessed history being
created with the momentous lifting of the IC
dome structure that they had meticulously and
painstakingly built over the past four months.
Experts feel that this could well be one of the
firsts in the world considering the unique
geometry of the dome and the provision of

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large openings that further complicated the
lifting process.
The gigantic, 355 t circular steel structure that
was supported on the ground by trestles,
comprised 53 individual panels of varying
geometries

that

were

precision

welded

together in sequence to achieve a distortion

tolerance of only 18 mm. The team completed
a whopping 53 km of welding to piece the
structure together to form a unique torispherical shape brought about by the two
dimensional bending of the backing members.
18 lifting lugs were integrated and special
lifting tools & tackles, 55 t bow shackles and
45 t turn buckles used to smoothly lift the
dome. The imported bow shackles with special
in-built load cell arrangements and telemetric
monitoring

of

the

load

cells

ensured

uniformity of loads on all the slings. The

profile and elevation of the structure was
maintained using the support of 106 t heavy
duty towers along with specially fabricated
timber packing. The main component for
lifting however was a specially fabricated 12.5
t evener beam that was heat treated to release
stresses and was tested using 1.25 times the
actual load.
The IC dome structure included a pair of large
openings for steam generators that warranted
a 54 t special supporting trestle of 19.2 m

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height. With only 200 mm clearance to work

the team achieved 6 mm tolerance at the

with, team L&T lifted and placed the trestle in

centre of the dome as against the permissible

position between the pair of steam generators

30 mm. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board

that were ready to bear the load of the IC

(AERB), one of the toughest regulatory bodies

dome when placed atop the IC wall.

of the country, complimented the feat by

The iconic dome structure that measures 47 m

diameter and 8.25 m in height does not
require

the

conventional

steel

support

stating that they were unable to differentiate

between the 3D model of the dome liner and
the actual one created by L&T.

assembly leading to huge savings in the

This feat comes as the crowning glory to this

quantity of structural steel used apart from

exceptional

savings in cost and construction time.

already set several benchmarks including the

Beginning at 5.45 am, the process of lifting

and placing the IC dome structure atop the
inner containment wall onto the waiting 144
stools took 2 hours. The alignment and
anchoring took another 3 hours after which
the crane was released. It is commendable that

team

at

Kakrapar

which

has

modular erection of a pre-fabricated ring liner

(PRL)

for

consecutive

the

inner

RoSPA

containment
Gold

Medals

wall,

and

consecutive Sarvasreshta Suraksha Puraskar

from National Safety Council of India for their
impeccable safety records.