Concrete base slab

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The parties to the contract were the plant builder (Areva ANP, AREVA), the structural designer of the
base slab (Finnprima), the concrete supplier (Forssan Betoni Oy) and the contractor that performed the
concreting work (Hartela Oy).
The reactor building, the safeguard buildings and the fuel building share a common base slab. the design
bases of the slab include loads during the construction stage, loads during plant operation, loads caused by
internal accidents or external collisions against the plant, as well as earthquakes. Security against collapsing
of the entire construction based on the slab as a result of earthquake or collision loads has also been required.
The base slab is 103.1 m wide and 100.8 m long. The thickness of the slab under the reactor building is
3.15 m and under the safeguard buildings 1.5 m. The slab is over its entire area supported on rock. The
concrete composition used in the base slab is not used in conventional construction work, and in that sense it
is rare. Similar mixes are mainly used only in massive structures. The type of concrete used in the base slab
cannot be considered to pose any special difficulties in fabrication or concreting, provided the concrete mix
has been validated with sufficient preliminary tests.
The consortium AREVA-Siemens (CFS) selected Forssan Betoni from the four potential concrete
suppliers apparently on price grounds, although the small size of the company was considered a risk.
However, Forssan Betoni had taken part in some large-scale construction projects before, such as bridges
and power plants, and according to CFS the company fulfilled the criteria defined for the selection.
At the time the agreement was concluded, Forssan Betoni was not required to have a valid certified ISO
9001 quality system, although most of the other candidates were already at the time using an ISO 9000-
based quality system.
Hartela Oy was chosen by AREVA as the concreting contractor from among several candidates. The
selection was strongly influenced by TVO's request to employ Finnish contractors on the site.
According to information received from TVO, the large base slab concreting operation on 3 October was
started using the designed and approved composition of concrete. TVO's supervisors detected problems in
the concreting work on the afternoon of the first concreting day.
After months of investigations, Areva decided to replace Hartela Oy? with giant French construction giant
Bouygues Trravaux Publics.



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STUK Investigation report 1/06