History has been made! The very first Westinghouse AP1000™ is now in the construction phase after placement of the concrete for the basemat, also known as “first concrete,” in China.

Placement of the basemat concrete for Sanmen Unit 1 successfully ended March 31 after 46 hours and 58 minutes of continuously pouring 4,982 m³ of concrete. Completing of the basemat placement keeps construction on schedule for completion and commercial start-up of the AP1000 unit in 2013.

The placing of the first concrete at the Sanmen site follows several months of preparation, including excavation of the area meant to house the nuclear island. That excavation, which took approximately 18 months to complete, created a 39’ (11.88m) deep hole with sloping sides that is approximately 173’ (52.73m) wide by 256’ (78.02m) long. The concrete was placed into this excavated area.

Some interesting facts about the placement of the basemat include:

• The basemat below the auxiliary building is 6 feet (1.83m) thick; below the shield and containment building, the thickness of the basemat varies between 6 feet (1.83m) and 39’-6” (12.04m)
• It utilizes approximately 1,047 tons (950 metric tons) of reinforcing steel
• It also uses approximately 1,000 anchor bolts
• The placement of the concrete took 400 management and construction personnel working in continuous shifts

In addition to the four units planned in China, the Westinghouse AP1000 has been selected by five utilities to lead the nuclear renaissance in the United States. Additionally, more than 40 countries throughout the world have also expressed interest in the AP1000.

As construction progresses at Sanmen and other sites, Westinghouse will regularly update stakeholders of the status through this e-newsletter. If you know of someone that would like to receive this e-newsletter, please send an e-mail to Gus Miller at milleram@westinghouse.com.

For more information about the construction in Sanmen, contact Scott Shaw at shawsa@westinghouse.com.

Back to Top

As Sir Richard Stafford Cripps, British Labour politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1947 to 1950, once said, “Productive power is the foundation of a country's economic strength.” As many countries around the world are discovering, the foundation for productive power in the 21st century starts with the Westinghouse AP1000.

The AP1000’s basemat is the innovative foundation that gives the plant a solid start in construction. The basemat, which one can think of as the foundation “pad,” ties the nuclear island buildings into what is essentially one structure. The AP1000 basemat meets the functional requirements of a building foundation by providing the strength and stability necessary for design loads to transmit safely from the structure onto the underlying rock and soil substrata.

The structures of the nuclear island consist of the containment building, shield building, and auxiliary building, which are together founded on the common, cast-in-place, reinforced concrete basemat, which together make up an integrated unit.

The interconnectivity of these structures allows the basemat to be thinner than most conventional nuclear building basemats while still being able to meet the foundation functional requirements. This in turn saves considerable material and time cost while providing the most robust basement structure possible.

The design is based on the overall worst combination of seismic loads and soil properties for 22 sites in the eastern U.S. This combination allows a generic design that is applicable to many sites, not just in the U.S. but also in international sites such as China.

The AP1000 basemat is designed so that the combined design loads from the foundation are spread over an area of the ground capable of sustaining the loads without undue settlement. Resistance to sliding of the concrete basemat foundation is provided by passive soil pressure and soil friction. This provides the required factor of safety against lateral movement under the most stringent loading conditions.

The solid basemat of the AP1000 provides the foundation for the next generation of nuclear power to be constructed. With the AP1000 as the foundation of today’s nuclear renaissance, clean reliable energy will be available globally for future generations.

Back to Top

The AP1000’s standard design makes it one of the simplest choices for customers who are looking at adding nuclear energy to their portfolio. Westinghouse is continually examining ways to improve on all aspects of the standardization of the AP1000, from design to documentation.

One important area that Westinghouse has been actively collaborating with our customers is the simplification and standardization of the ITAAC process.

A Combined Construction and Operating License (COL) authorizes construction and conditional operation of a nuclear power plant in the United States. As a condition to the COL, utilities must prove to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that all required Inspections, Tests, Analyses, and Acceptance Criteria (ITAAC) have been met before any fuel is loaded and the plant is operative.

For submission to the NRC to be complete, Westinghouse customers need to complete more than 800 ITAACs, nearly all of which are "standard," meaning they apply equally to all AP1000s constructed under the 10 CFR Part 52 licensing process. Since the AP1000 is a standardized plant, Westinghouse recognized the need to streamline the processes involved in ITAAC integration, performance and documentation, in order to create a standard process for our customers.
 
Westinghouse recently addressed this important customer issue through an innovative Customer 1^st project. The project brought customers and Westinghouse staff together to develop standardized processes that can be applied to addressing ITAACs for any AP1000 plant. From there, guidelines have been created for customers to follow in order to complete each standard ITAAC that they can use to base all of their submissions to the NRC. The result is a process that guides customers in submitting ITAAC-related documents to the NRC in a way that is intended to reduce risk and makes it easier for customers to build, operate, and license an AP1000.

Currently, Westinghouse has undertaken the first stage of the standardized ITAAC process. Long lead and other supplier-related ITAACs will be completed first; the second stage will finalize the remainder of the standard ITAACs.

As the standard ITAACs are integrated into the AP1000, a second, site-specific Customer 1^st project is also underway recommending to customers how they should complete the few remaining non-standard ITAACs that are specific to their AP1000 project. The project is also developing guidance as to how to submit all AP1000 ITAAC-related information to the NRC in a standardized way.

Customer 1^st incorporates elements of Lean Enterprise, Six Sigma, Human Performance and Behavioral Differentiation. These key elements allow the Customer 1^st program to form a unique approach that encourages operational excellence and puts customer needs and success at the heart of everything that Westinghouse does. Customer 1^st is an ongoing commitment from all Westinghouse employees to meet our customers’ unique needs and create the best customer experience in the nuclear industry.

For more information on this project, contact Customer 1^st Leader Don Hutchings at hutchidf@westinghouse.com.

Back to Top

The Westinghouse AP1000 is playing a prominent role in the global nuclear renaissance. Westinghouse works hard to meet and exceed the needs of our customers with every aspect of the AP1000, including design, operation and licensing. The simplicity of the AP1000 makes it a sensible choice when selecting a nuclear plant for new build.

The licensing process is one area in which Westinghouse has invested considerable time to reducing risk for our customers. In 1989, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) established a new licensing procedure, 10 CFR Part 52, for new nuclear plants in the United States. 10 CFR Part 52 has become the official rulemaking document for licensing new nuclear plant designs.

Design Certification, through the issuance of a Design Certification Rule (DCR), is the final step in the NRC’s process of rule-making and regulation. The NRC approved the DCR for the AP1000 in December, 2005. In January, 2006 the NRC issued and published the AP1000 DCR in the Federal Register.

The Design Certification Rule was based on Revision 15 of the AP1000 Design Control Document (DCD) as referenced in Appendix D to 10 CFR Part 52. Westinghouse and others must submit a DCD to the NRC as the basis of any new plant design. The DCD describes the overall configuration, safety systems, and supporting technical analysis. It also provides the justification for approving construction, fuel loading and operation, and is the foundation of the one-step licensing process.

10 CFR Part 52 also creates the Combined Construction and Operating License (COL) application process for customers to obtain a license. Any site-specific issues related to construction and operation are typically addressed in this application. The AP1000 Design Control Document (DCD) is the primary reference document that customers use when making their COL application with the NRC, utilizing the AP1000’s standard design. The AP1000 Design Certification, based on Revision 15 of the DCD, will remain valid for 15 years, and can be renewed for an additional 10 to 15 years.

In 2007, the NRC finalized an amendment process to allow the incorporation of additional design information and changes into the certification process. The purpose of the AP1000 DCD amendment process is to minimize the site-specific licensing scope of work, with the intent of making the COL application process more predictable and efficient for customers.

Westinghouse has listened to customer needs in making improvements to details of its standard plant design. As such, Westinghouse is taking advantage of the NRC Part 52 DCD amendment process, in order to satisfy customer requests while alleviating uncertainties in the COL application process. Westinghouse has been working closely with the AP1000 Builders Group in order to gather and implement requested customer changes and regulatory requirements. This is being done by incorporating the requests and requirements into the AP1000 DCD.

Westinghouse and its customers concluded that it was far more efficient to combine all applicable and generic design changes into a revised DCD. Revising the DCD improves the design for all customers, fosters standardization, and is much easier in the long-term than having each COL applicant pursue their own separate parallel paths to close out common COL items. By driving standardization and gaining approval of our customers, this process will also increase safety, allow lessons learned to be shared from one project to another, lessen construction risk, and ultimately improve the operation of the fleet of AP1000 plants, no matter where they are built.

The revised DCD is the basis for applying for an amended Design Certification. The intent is for the amended AP1000 Design Certification to be approved by the NRC in sufficient time for the power companies to have their respective COL's issued to them in accordance with their schedules.

The basis for the existing AP1000 Design Certification, issued in January 2006 and now followed by the application for an amended Design Certification, can be thought of in the same way as the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution was originally created in 1787 and stands today as the supreme law of the United States. Nevertheless, the Constitution has been amended from time to time to embrace desirable changes as issues became evident over time.

Back to Top