TVEL Fuel Company of Rosatom has manufactured and dispatched shipment of nuclear fuel mock-ups for the first unit of Akkuyu NPP, currently under construction in Turkey. The fuel dummies are shipped together with mock-ups of control rods and tools for incoming inspections of nuclear fuel. The equipment has been manufactured by Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant, a fabrication facility of TVEL Fuel Company in West Siberia.
Prior to the launch of a new power unit, dummies of fuel assemblies, as well as mock-ups of control rods get loaded into the reactor core and then unloaded, in order to test the key systems of the facility. The reactor core of a Generation III+ power unit consists of 163 fuel assemblies with uranium fuel.
The first loading nuclear fuel delivery for Akkuyu’s Unit 1 is scheduled for 2023. In late 2017, TVEL and Akkuyu Nükleer A.Ş. signed a long-term contract for supplies of nuclear fuel for all for power units of Akkuyu NPP.
Along with that, TVEL’s Central Institute of Design and Technology will supply to each unit of the nuclear power plant Russian-made refueling machines, which are used for nuclear fuel loading and replacement of spent fuel. The shipment of the refueling machine to the first power unit of Akkuyu NPP is scheduled for 2023.