Structures for the release of sea water from the nuclear plants of Paluel and Flamanville

Nuclear plants necessitate large amounts of cooling water. This explains why Electricite de France, the French Electricity Authority, is currently building several such plants along the Channel coast, using sea water. This paper describes the design and the beginning of the construction of the discharge outlets of the nuclear plants of Paluel and Flamanville. These outlets consist in vertical shafts 40 to 60 m deep bored at a distance of about 1000 m from the shore in the open sea. The shafts are covered with a light concrete diffusor whose function is to spread out the hot water flow into sea water. The paper puts emphasis on the tool used for the construction of these shafts which is a small movable gravity platform made of a concrete caisson supporting a self-elevating steel deck