Pouring concrete, with grace
3 Apr 2017
With their slowly moving booms extended, concrete pumps are sometimes as gracious as ballet dancers. They definitely were on 24 March when concrete pouring began on Plot 7 of the second (above ground) storey of the bioshield.
Connected to mixer trucks by pipes running through the basement of the Tokamak Complex, the two pumps can deliver some 30 cubic metres of concrete per hour.
Plot 7 is a special section of the concrete fortress that surrounds the machine: it is where the large openings for the neutral beam injectors (and their curious ovoid penetrations) are located.
The operation, which lasted for the better part of the day, consisted in pouring some 240 cubic metres of self-compacting concrete through dense rebar in order to form a wall 5.4 metres high.
The circular structure of the bioshield now rises dramatically at the center of the Tokamak Complex. As concrete pouring proceeds, workers on the L1 level of the building are busy handling a bundle of 12-metre-long bars for the steel reinforcement of the neutral beam cell slab.