Significant Milestone Reached With Concrete 'mega Pour'
30th December 2020
Work on Dounreay's newest radioactive waste store went up a storey last week, with the completion of a ‘mega' concrete pour.
The construction project was one of the first to re-start work on 22 June, following the easing of lock down restrictions. The 60-strong team has had to learn COVID-19 compliant ways of working, sometimes in close proximity with each other, to keep themselves and their colleagues safe on site. Since then they have poured 1,500 tonnes of concrete and the building walls have now risen to above the first floor level.
Last week the team embarked on the biggest concrete pour of the project so far, working for 9 hours to lay the floor slab in the crane maintenance bay (CMB) on the first floor of the building, with 27 lorries delivering 425 tonnes of concrete. An overnight shift completed the job in the early hours of the morning.
Dounreay Project Manager Dave Busby said that casting the CMB floor slab was a significant construction milestone as it will allow the team to install the 170 tonne CMB shield door early next year.
He added:
The team has overcome considerable obstacles this year, being COVID-19 compliant as they continue to work through the pandemic.
Dounreay awarded the contract to construct the new intermediate level waste store to GRAHAM Construction Ltd. Work started in 2018 and is expected to take around 3 years to complete. It will hold drums of waste in safe long term storage in accordance with Scottish Government policy.
Dounreay is Scotland’s largest nuclear decommissioning project and is widely recognised as one of Europe’s most complex nuclear closure programmes. The work is being delivered by DSRL, a company owned by Cavendish Dounreay Partnership, on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
Related Businesses
Related Articles
More than 140 graduates have started at Sellafield Ltd. Over 140 graduates have just started their exciting careers with the company in a range of business and technical disciplines, supporting Sellafield Ltd in its mission to create a clean and safe environment for future generations.
Find out what has been happening at UKAEA in our monthly newsletter. Read about our recent activities and upcoming events.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) group has on 26 September 2024 published its 2023 to 2024 socio-economic report detailing a record investment in projects across the UK. Over the last five years, the NDA group has invested £60 million in projects that enable permanent and sustainable change in its site communities, leveraging many millions more from partners.
Today, the ponds inside the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (or as we like to call it, Thorp) are used to store nuclear fuel that has been used in the UK's 7 operational nuclear reactors. Before taking on this new mission, Thorp reprocessed 9,000 tonnes of used nuclear fuel from around the world, generating an estimated £9 billion in revenue for the UK over 2 decades.
Over 100 graduates join the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority group today as applications open for 2025. As applications open for 2025, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) group also welcomed its largest ever cohort of graduates today, with more than 100 new recruits ready to support delivery of one of the world's most important environmental programmes.
In a world-first, a fully autonomous robot has been used to inspect the inside of a fusion energy facility. In a world-first, a fully autonomous robot has been used to inspect the inside of a fusion energy facility.
At the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority biannual stakeholder summit, CEO David Peattie announced up to £5 million over five years to support around 20 PhDs. On the 17th and 18th of September the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) hosted its biannual in person stakeholder summit, bringing together over 170 delegates from national and local government, the nuclear sector and site communities.
This year's cohort of apprentices and graduates will help drive forward work at the UK's largest and most complex nuclear site. Up to 300 vocational and degree apprentices and 150 graduates are expected to join Sellafield Ltd in this year's intake.
A repeating tone - blip, blip, blip - is the audible reminder that we are in one of the most hazardous nuclear sites in the world: Sellafield. That sound - pulsing from speakers inside the cavernous fuel-handling plant - is a signal that everything is functioning as it should.
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) group publishes overview of progress being made against sustainability goals. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) group has today published an overview of progress being made against its sustainability goals.
