OREANDA-NEWS. February 17, 2011. Recently, the world's first EPR nuclear power and nuclear island safety injection tank is sent from Shanghai Electric Power Equipment Co., Ltd. and is shipped to Taishan (Guangdong) Nuclear Power Station unit 1 project site. The set consists world leading technology and has the largest single unit capacity. The material is provided exclusively by Baosteel and the set is made of super-heavy Nitrogen-containing stainless steel plates, which represent the highest level in today's nuclear power steel key areas, reported the press-centre of Baosteel.

EPR is new pressurized water reactor nuclear power technology jointly developed by Areva and Siemens, and belongs to the third generation of nuclear power technology along with Westinghouse's AP1000. It has excellent safety performance, mature technology process, outstanding economic competitiveness and high environmental standards. Taishan Nuclear Power Plant first- phase project is the large-scale commercial nuclear power plant which adopted EPR nuclear power technology. With 1.75 million kilowatts of unit capacity, it is the largest unit capacity nuclear power plant in the world. As  technology partner, the French side intents to build Taishan nuclear power plant into the world's EPR nuclear power benchmark project.

EPR nuclear power technology requires high-quality nuclear reactor nuclear island material. Safety injection tank is the key equipment in the nuclear island. It not only has strict requirements on steel shape, surface quality, mechanical properties and inspectability, but also requires that all should be super-heavy plates, with 90 mm maximum thickness and 11.5 tons maximum weight. This has been no domestic precedence in producing such plates. Previously, Baosteel produced only plates with width below 65 mm and 7 tons of single-weight.

By the end of 2008, through collaboration, Baosteel quickly set up production, marketing& research team consisting of Special Steel Department, Baosteel Research Institute's stainless steel technology center, Baosteel International, the original medium and heavy plate corporation. They communicated with Shanghai Electric who undertook safety injection tank manufacturing and ultimately reached a cooperation agreement. Based upon the research of nitrogen containing super heavy stainless steel plate's key technical characteristics, the team reviewed Baosteel production process and consistent technology system and made plans on production process consisting special steel, medium and heavy plate production line and effective social resource. Baosteel broke through the technological limits in steel making and molding, solved difficulties concerning purity, mechanical properties and super heavy plate welding technique, developed large-scale ingot casting technology, super heavy plate hot rolling technology, super heavy stainless steel annealing and pickling techniques and successful produced 90 mm nuclear Nitrogen containing heavy stainless steel plate.

Last September, the first batch of super heavy Nitrogen containing stainless steel plates produced independently by Baosteel was delivered to Shanghai Electric. The certification by authority shows that the product's quality fully meets the requirements of EPR nuclear power safety injection tank steel and reached the level of foreign product quality, with some indicators even better than foreign products. This is also the first time that domestic nuclear power project uses domestic stainless steel in nuclear island key equipment production. It is reported that Baosteel has provided Taishan EPR nuclear power safety injection tank with 530 tons of super heavy stainless steel plates.