La central nuclear Hinkley Point C (HPC) es uno de los proyectos más grandes y tecnológicamente más complejos de Europa.

HPC es la primera central nuclear construida en el Reino Unido en una generación, y su construcción requiere una mano de obra altamente cualificada y las mejores soluciones de construcción e ingeniería.

The HPC Project is located in Somerset, South West England, and will consist of two nuclear reactors capable of generating 3.2GW of low-carbon electricity.

The new power station is being constructed in the same area as the existing Hinkley Point A and B stations. The former ceased operations some time ago, while the latter is decommissioned in 2022.

A Dextra se le confió el suministro de empalmes mecánicos de refuerzo de hormigón para piezas de HPC, en particular la carcasa de protección contra impactos de aeronaves del reactor.

More than 2.5 million Griptec couplers have been supplied for the construction of HPC.

Griptec is designed to comply with the most stringent project specifications, and has proven to be a popular system of choice for EPR nuclear power stations, having been used for the construction of the Flamanville 3, Taishan 1, and Taishan 2 power stations.

The Griptec mechanical splice consists of two steel sleeves which are swaged onto the end of the reinforcing bars by a specific machine that was designed and patented by Dextra.

This swaging machine incorporates a systematic, non-destructive pull test. Griptec is the only coupler system that provides an automatic quality control of each processed bar.

Besides Griptec couplers, Dextra is also supplying 3 million headed bars to the project. These are reinforcing bars that are bent on one side and fitted with an anchorage head on the other side and are used for the transverse reinforcement of concrete slabs, rafts, and walls. They allow a much faster and safer site installation than conventional double-bend bars.

When complete, HPC will provide low-carbon electricity for around six million homes.