NUCLEAR
engineer for the project, cited a variety of specific environmental problems they would have to deal with. They included unknown stay times, high temperatures and a lack of options for a cool tent because the work location would be constantly moving. Detailed planning was essential. Konecranes and David-Besse engineers first mocked up the entire job, including how long each task would take and the number of parts involved. Zawaki built a life-sized mock-up of the containment area, which showed where the conductor bar system was located. The plans were cut to the exact dimensions workers would be seeing when they entered the containment building. In the event, the 10-person conductor bar
Prototype SMR crane from PAR.
315MWe SMR, the BWRX-300, is under construction. Nuclear handling specialists PAR recently partnered with NuScale Power to build a small-scale reactor building crane, a prototype that will be used in NuScale’s industry- leading VOYGR small modular reactor (SMR) plant. The specialised crane features process automation and large load manipulation capacity. The production version will have 950t capacity.
Nuclear poles
All nuclear construction demands lifting equipment, much of which is specialised and some of which is very specialised indeed. Radioactive environments, the need for absolute reliability, and the unique architecture of many nuclear facilities are just some of the constraints on design. A prime example is the polar crane. It is a design especially used in – and almost unique to – the nuclear industry. Of high lifting capacity and situated inside the – generally circular – reactor building, their designated and standard use is to handle fuel assemblies and reactor head removal during maintenance outages. For example, FirstEnergy Corporation’s Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station, located in Oak Harbor, Ohio, uses a polar crane to lift the reactor head off the domed circular containment building every 18 months. Recently Konecranes were called upon to replace the conductor bar for the polar crane after degraded and hanging conductor bar insulation was observed. To do so, a large scope of work needed to be done within a four-day window. All parts, tools, insulation and scaffolding had to be set up at the job site prior to tag out. Special tools and skills were required at insulation splices and joints. Adding to the challenge was that the project needed to be performed according to foreign material exclusion procedures.
At the same time as the conductor bar replacement,
Konecranes modernisation engineers also worked to increase the capacity of the crane. Carrying out both projects simultaneously imposed still more limits on both sets of workers’ access and mobility. Mike Zawacki, a senior nuclear engineer for First Energy and crane
22 | November/December 2026 |
www.hoistmagazine.com
project crew completed their project in three days, working two 12-hour shifts per day, plus stay times for overexertions required by the 130°F working conditions. Five additional Konecranes employees worked on and completed the crane modification project at the same time. Nuclear polar cranes must be of high lifting capacity
to enable them to lift reactor heads during operation of a plant. That high capacity can also be put to use during its construction. A textbook example took place this June, at the UK’s Hinkley Point C nuclear project. The plant is the UK’s first new nuclear power station in over two decades. It has two reactors and two reactor houses. The polar crane for Reactor House 2 had already been installed; on-site also is the Sarens SGC- 250 crane known as ‘Big Carl’ that is claimed as officially the world’s largest land-based crane. Working together over two days the two completed a crucial and very major lift for the project. They raised and moved Hinkley Point C’s second nuclear reactor into its building and installed it in place. The reactor weighs 500t and is 13m long. It was constructed as a modular unit outside the building; Big Carl, which can lift up to 5,000t, then lifted it, on its side, onto a rail-based transport system that allowed it to be passed through a hole in the side of the reactor building. Once inside the building the polar crane took over. It raised the reactor and rotated it to its proper vertical orientation, then lowered it onto a support ring in its final position. This had to be carefully managed: there was just 40mm clearance on either side. This was the second reactor at the project. The first
reactor, for Unit 1, had been set in place earlier using a large temporary overhead lifting system instead of the polar crane. “The new method, combining Big Carl and the polar crane, saved space, time and money,” said project owners EDF. Unit 2, they said, is being built 20–30% more quickly than Unit 1, thanks in part to the innovative use of the polar crane. Another collaborative lift between a hoist and a crane also took place at Hinkley Point. In this case it was during construction three marine underground tunnels that will draw in and discharge cooling water from the Bristol Channel. A critical milestone here was the installation of the Triple Point Shaft Formwork, a 230t structure lowered 40m underground to connect the three marine tunnels. The shaft’s narrow
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