Nuclear
This Nuclear Power station new-build project will run to over 22,000 Tonnes of steel and supply a sizeable amount of UK energy once complete. One of the first packages William Hare worked on are the massive base columns for the Turbine Halls.
The TG Sets are ‘exoskeleton’ columns that form the table-top platform that will support the main turbines for the power plant at Hinkley. They will be concrete filled, with a concrete slab over the top and will be isolated from the rest of the Turbine Hall frame to avoid transference of vibration. All incoming beams connected to the columns will be fixed down to supporting corbels via bearings.
Each column is up to 2.0m2, has around 450 internal parts, 1800 welds, 300 bolts and is being fabricated in up to 7 separate sub-assembly boxes that will be butt welded together to form a 30 Tonnes, 15m long box. The specialist skills and experience we have at our facility in Risca for confined space working and high-quality welding have been supplemented by a team of inspectors tasked with checking and logging every welding operation carried out on the columns. A huge task that has been made possible by the painstaking work involved in detailing every section, bolt, weld, prep and plate.
The TG Sets make up the first 600 Tonnes of steel to be delivered – half of which are now erected. Design, detailing, fabrication and painting is in progress on other areas.
Hinkley Main Control Room Floor grillage is in the video below in fabrication at our facility in Risca. It is the first of two identical steel frames housing the Power station main control rooms.
Each weigh circa 160 Tonnes and are being fabricated as 6 pre-welded sub-modules. There will be a trial build for each control room outside of the factory prior to painting. The modules will then be transported to site, erected away from their final position with some ‘first fix’ fit out, and then lifted into their permanent location on site by ‘Big Carl’ (the biggest land-based crane in Europe).