Chennai, Jan 17 (IANS): Russia's integrated nuclear power player Rosatom on Monday said its machine building division has begun manufacturing a nuclear reactor and steam generators for the sixth 1,000 MW unit to be built at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu.

According to Rosatom, the reactor and steam generator shells have passed the incoming inspection, and the items are at the initial operations of the manufacturing cycle.

Preliminary work for anticorrosive overlay is being carried out on the flange and bottom of the reactor. At the welding unit, protective overlay is applied to the bodies of the primary circuit collector of the steam generator.

As per the contract, Rosatom will make and supply two nuclear reactors, two sets of steam generators, reactor coolant pump sent bodies, main circulation piping, emergency core cooling system tanks, passive core flooding system tanks, and two pressurisers.

The total weight of the above items will be about 6,000 tons.

According to Rosatom, the reactor is an item of the first safety class. It is a vertical cylindrical body with an elliptical bottom. The core and internals are located inside the vessel.

From above, the vessel is hermetically sealed with a cover with drives of mechanisms and control and protection bodies installed on it, and nozzles for the output of cables of sensors for in-core monitoring.

The steam generator is a heat exchanger and a part of a steam generating unit. Its diameter is more than 4 metres, length is about 14 metres and weight is 340 tons. The set of one nuclear power plant includes four steam generators.

India's atomic power plant operator Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) has two 1,000 MW plants (Units 1 and 2) at Kudankulam, while four more (Units 3, 4, 5 and 6) are under construction.

All the six units are built with Russian technology and equipment supplied by Rosatom.

In December 2021, the first concrete was laid at the power unit No 6.