Heidelberg Materials UK has installed the first on-site nuclear-grade concrete batching plant at Sizewell C in Suffolk, and it is already producing concrete for the cut-off wall around the new power station site. The wall is designed to be watertight and will allow roughly 4 million cubic metres of earth to be excavated for two 1.6GW reactor units.

Heidelberg says it is the first company in the UK certified to produce nuclear-grade concrete to BS EN 19443, and the Sizewell C concrete is being made to the same standard. The standard applies ISO 9001 quality management requirements to suppliers in the nuclear supply chain whose products and services are important to nuclear safety.

The cut-off wall is being delivered by the Civil Works Alliance, whose contractor partners are Balfour Beatty, Bouygues Travaux Publics and Laing O’Rourke, and Heidelberg earlier secured the contract to supply around 35,000 cubic metres of concrete for the wall’s initial phase.

That earlier supply covers a 50m-deep cut-off wall, with admixtures in the mix to keep the concrete workable, extend the placing window and resist groundwater ingress.

Sean Hunter, major projects director at Heidelberg Materials UK, said: “Our involvement at Sizewell builds on our expertise in supplying high-quality materials to Hinkley Point C through intelligent replication.” Hunter added: “At its height we employed over 80 people on the Somerset site, but at Sizewell this could reach 200.”

Hunter said: “Our nuclear team has wide-ranging experience in the sector including liaising with the Office of Nuclear Regulation to produce the detailed quality and health and safety control documents that cover every aspect of working on a nuclear site.”

The structural driver is intelligent replication, the approach of building Sizewell C closely on the design of Hinkley Point C so that suppliers such as Heidelberg can carry proven practice across.

Hunter added: “The level of our involvement at Sizewell reinforces our leading position in the growing nuclear sector and means we are uniquely placed to help deliver the UK’s low-carbon energy infrastructure.”

For the sector, an on-site nuclear-grade plant puts batching, certification and delivery on the same site as the cut-off wall works.

Source: newcivilengineer.com / constructionbriefing.com / heidelbergmaterials.co.uk / projectplant.co.uk