Modernization of the Cernavodă nuclear power plant in Romania

Construction site report

Demolition of extremely hard concrete under sometimes difficult conditions

Cernavodă, a small town near the Black Sea coast, is home to Romania's only nuclear power plant. The power plant - consisting of two units - produces around a fifth of the country's electricity. One of these units was completely modernized in 2019. This involved the controlled dismantling of around 400 tons of concrete under the strictest safety conditions.

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"Despite very hard concrete, poor weather conditions and sub-zero temperatures, the project time was halved."

The dismantling was carried out by the company Diamond Drilling SRL from Bucharest using Tyrolit machines, among others. Diamond Drilling's main task was to cut and remove 22 linear meters of reinforced concrete wall, 4.5 m high and 75 cm thick, as well as nine 5 m high reinforced concrete columns with basic dimensions of 2.5 m x 1.5 m and 1.5 m x 1.5 m respectively. For this job, Diamond Drilling SRL used the WCE14 and SB-E electric wire saws and the WSE2226 wall saw from Tyrolit.

Despite very strong HPC 120 MPa concrete, poor weather conditions and sub-zero temperatures, the project time was halved. The employees of Diamond Drilling SRL, including the Tyrolit machines, showed that even the toughest conditions pose no problems.