CNNC Huaxing's Self-Developed "Island-Building Machine" Completes First Jacking at Xuwei Project

Recently, the containment construction integrated platform (referred to as the “Island-Building Machine”) for Unit 1 of the Jiangsu Xuwei Nuclear Heating and Power Plant, constructed and independently developed by CNNC Huaxing, successfully completed its first jacking, officially transitioning from installation and commissioning to the autonomous climbing phase. The platform integrates self-climbing, enclosed operations, and intelligent monitoring, and innovatively adopts a lightweight modular design. It incorporates equipment such as the platform system, wall-attached supports, hydraulic climbing, safety monitoring, and folding-boom cranes, effectively reducing R&D costs and improving assembly and disassembly efficiency.

The “Island-Building Machine” has three core functions: first, the hydraulic system drives synchronous jacking of machine positions, eliminating dependence on tower cranes for repeated lifting of formwork hanging frames; second, the top platform also serves as a material yard, with folding-boom cranes transferring rebar, formwork, and embedded parts around the cylinder, and the ring-rail crane serving the secondary steel structure construction between shells, reducing manual handling; third, the fully enclosed working level, combined with real-time monitoring, provides personnel with a safe and reliable working environment. Before jacking, the project team conducted multiple rounds of load tests, synchronous climbing tests, and attachment bearing tests to ensure that stresses at key locations were far below safety limits, that the height difference between adjacent machine positions during hydraulic synchronous lifting was controlled at the millimeter level, and that the system had automatic alarm and shutdown functions for overload and asynchronous conditions.

After the platform is fully put into use, the inner and outer containment shells can be constructed in layered synchronous flow operations. The ring corridor steel structure can be ready for construction approximately 6.8 months ahead of schedule, and constraints in the annular area of surrounding buildings can be lifted approximately 4.5 months ahead of schedule. The top platform adds approximately 520 square meters of material yard as it climbs with the cylinder. Six folding-boom cranes can release approximately 15% to 20% of tower crane capacity per unit, and the inter-shell ring-rail crane reduces manual handling by approximately 20%. The fully enclosed working level can reduce high-risk lifting operations by approximately 1,900 times per unit.

The innovative application of this equipment provides major engineering support for the batch and high-quality construction of nuclear islands, and is a concrete practice of CNNC Huaxing in implementing CNNC Group's digital and intelligent transformation requirements. CNNC Huaxing stated that it will replace manpower with equipment, improve work efficiency with data, and ensure safety with systems, distilling the Xuwei experience into a replicable “Huaxing Solution” to continuously promote safer, smarter, and more efficient construction of nuclear power projects.