ROSSOYUZHOLODPROM at the Business Program of the exhibition «CLIMATE WORLD-2017»
The second year running, within the Business Program of the “CLIMATE WORLD” exhibition, APIC and ROSSIYUZHOLODPROM jointly organized events dedicated to the Russian refrigeration industry. At this year exhibition, there were held the First All-Russian Conference “Business and Education”, the scientific and practical conference “Development of the Industry of cold at the Present Stage — 2017” and the School of Young Scientists named after professor I. Kalnin.
This activity covers practically the entire range of current issues and tasks of the refrigeration industry, starting from the preparation of professionals at the educational institutions to the achievements of the leading companies in the refrigeration segment of the market.
The reports presented at the conference “Business and Education”, scientific and practical conference “Development of the Industry of cold at the present stage — 2017” and at the School of Young Scientists named after professor Kalnin as well as video recordings of speeches are available on the Internet at https://climatexpo.ru/science/programm2017/
“The first attempt of a joint discussion of the business and education issues”
The conference “Business and Education” was held for the first time and right away at the all-Russian level. At the conference took part the representatives of the leading universities of the country who teach the refrigeration engineers, as well as the companies who are interested in the training of such specialists.
— This conference is the first attempt of a joint discussion of the business and education issues, and sure, this is not the last meeting. Recently was held a meeting with Vasily Osmakov (Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation — Ed.). At the meeting, was discussed the current situation at the industry and the issues of training of qualified personnel. The Ministry of Industry and Trade agreed to provide the necessary support. In addition, the State Duma will form a new structure to help the Russian refrigeration industry, — said welcoming the participants of the conference Yury Dubrovin, Chairman of the ROSSOYUZHOLODPROM.
It was noted at the event that training the specialists for the industry is, first, the task of the industry, because only a look from inside could help to determine which specialists are needed, and what stages of their preparation need special attention. That is why the dialogue between the commercial and educational structures is so important for the development of the effective educational programs and the creation of a high-quality modern technical base for training. At the same time, the task of the State is to provide the necessary support and promote the process.
Yury Dubrovin noted that the WorldSkills program is actively developing in Russia nowadays, the access to the best industrial technologies is organized. Our country applied for housing the WorldSkills Championship in 2019.
Another achievement of the industry with the direct participation of the ROSSIYUZHOLODPROM, was the development of the quantitative indicators of the actual demand of the regions of the country in certain specialists.
— In
Business for education, education for business
At the conference “Business and Education”, it was repeatedly noted that today business structures and the education institutions work together. Business helps the education in renovation of the technical base, creation of training facilities and attraction of the students to the industrial practice. In turn, the educational institutions are ready to offer the refrigeration and climate business the young professionals able to solve the real tasks of industry.
Experience of the ITMO University (St. Petersburg)
Alexandr Baranenko, Director of the Institute of Refrigeration and Biotechnology of the ITMO University, President of the International Academy of Refrigeration, said that the education of the refrigeration specialists at the university began in 1931. Now, it is the field of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Low-Temperature Systems, which annually graduates about 200 specialists. Since 2017, this educational institution switched completely to the two-level education system — bachelor’s and master’s programs.
More than 20 commercial organizations cooperate with ITMO on refrigeration, including such companies as DAIKIN and BITZER. They provide financial support, help in equipping laboratories (Figure 1), offer the practice for students; they also form orders for graduates. The university has a sufficient capacity to prepare qualified professionals and is ready to open new master’s programs if there are corresponding orders from the employers.
During the presentation, Alexander Baranenko formulated several problems that require solution. The current educational standards do not provide the continuity in the transition of students from the bachelor’s to the master’s program. The point is that all engineering bachelors may take the engineering master’s program. Often to the magistracy come the students who have not studied thermodynamics, gas dynamics and other specialized disciplines in the sufficient volume. It is very difficult to make full-fledged refrigerator professionals for two years of the students without basic knowledge. Among the ways of solving this problem, it is proposed to develop the methods of the distance learning and self-study through the system of online courses.
Another social phenomenon is the desire of undergraduates to combine study and job. As a result, they practically do not attend classes. The solution of this problem is a more thorough assessment of the students’ professional knowledge. It is expected that introduction of the professional standards will contribute to it.
Finally, despite the clear achievements in the cooperation with commercial companies, the ITMO University plans to work more closely with the specialized commercial companies in the field of professional education. It is important to create the conditions for the master student to be more focused on the specialization of the company in which he plans to work later, and thus to solve the problem of professional adaptation of the young specialist at the workplace.
Experience of the MSTU N. Bauman (Moscow)
At the MSTU N. Bauman, the leading technical university in the country, has historically formed the so-called Russian school of education of engineers of a wide profile who possess a vast baggage of fundamental scientific knowledge. The chair “Refrigeration and cryogenic equipment, air-conditioning and life-support systems” of the faculty “Energy machine-building” prepares the engineers in the refrigeration and cryogenics systems.
Education of specialists is adjusted to the requirements of the refrigerating market. Nikolai Lavrov, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of the MSTU N. Bauman, notes that a rapidly changing market situation led to the necessity of learning throughout the life: people receive a bachelor’s degree and then several master’s degrees.
The Russian industry, noted in MSTU, as a rule, only indicates its participation in creating the educational programs, despite the readiness of the university to a full-scale cooperation. At the same time, there are some good examples: company CARRIER responded the call to help in the preparation of educational programs. As a result, 50% of the course of the new program is delivered by the faculty professors, 50% by the CARRIER experts.
MSTU also pays much attention to the postgraduate professional training. It concerns the professional retraining for a new type of activity and the retraining for obtaining additional qualification as well. The courses have short-term and long-term programs, the thematic and specialized seminars are hold.
Victor Shishov, Ph.D., Associate Professor of the MSTU N. Bauman, told about the stands constructed at the chair with the participation of commercial companies. Among them is the stand presented by MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC “Air-to-water heat pump”, stand “Refrigeration chamber with single-stage refrigeration unit” from the company OSTROV (Fig. 2), stand “Refrigerating Mixing Plant” provided by the company KURS.
Thanks to cooperation with the business community, the chair has now visual aids for ventilation, refrigerants and air conditioners. The visual aid for air conditioners, for example, allows the students to assemble the refrigeration unit by themselves. It is also expected the stand based on a geothermal heat pump.
Availability of modern stands is an important advantage of the university. As it is known, the educational institutions will have to pass accreditation to meet the modern requirements for educational institutions. Nikolai Lavrov notes: “it is necessary to introduce public accreditation, because now there are situations when everything is fine on paper, but in practice, apart from the stand based on an old fan, there is nothing at an educational institution. The worst thing, it is impossible to check this.”
Experience of the company OSTROV (Moscow)
Sergey Sinitsyn, Director of the training center of the company OSTROV, told about his experience of cooperation with the educational institutions and creation of the company’s own training center:
— We, as consumers, are interested to hire the ready professionals, and not as it usually happens: a graduate comes to work, and one more year is needed to teach him to perform the necessary functions. In this regard, our training center has two main tasks: assistance to the student during the latest years of higher education and assistance to the educational institution to prepare the necessary professional. In our turn, we have a plan to employ the graduates.
The company OSTROV developed a program of continuous professional development of employees, the company creates a system in which each employee can assess his level of skills, and the chief has the opportunity to monitor the dynamics of professional growth of the employees.
In addition, is implemented a distant learning system on-the-job. Each employee has an individual development plan which can be implemented with the help of a corporate portal where are located e-courses and video lectures, are conducted webinars and control tests. There is also a knowledge base not only for the employees of the company OSTROV, but also for all those who are involved in the refrigeration industry.
In general, the company OSTROV carries out the work on improving the quality of education in three directions: feedback with educational institutions for the improvement of the professional education system, popularization of technical solutions and achievements of the company in the professional community, promotion of the advanced educational standards in the system of professional education in Russia. The general scheme of the interaction with educational institutions is presented on the Figure 3.
— The most successful teams are formed where the professional training is carried out at the productional training centers, or industrial companies are attracted, — concluded Sergei Sinitsyn.
Their own examples of the mutually beneficial cooperation between business and education were brought by the representatives of the Moscow Polytechnic University, Moscow State University of Food Production, as well as THERMOCOOL, VERKONT SERVICE, VNIIHOLODMASH, DANFOSS and other organizations.
Refrigeration and cryogenic industry in Russia
A special event within the Business Program of the exhibition “CLIMATE WORLD — 2017” was the scientific and practical conference “Development of the industry of cold at the present stage — 2017”. It was devoted to the current state of affairs in the refrigeration and cryogenic industries.
The conference was attended by the leading companies of the industry, including EMERSON CLIMATE TECHNOLOGIES, BITZER, OSTROV, GP REFRIGERATION AND ENGINEERING CENTER, RUSENERGOMONTAZH, NPO GELIYMASH, TRANSCOOL.RUS, DETAILENGINEERING, THERMOCOOL and others.
Compressors, pumps, refrigerants …
Maksim Talyzin, Engineer of EMERSON CLIMATE TECHNOLOGIES, told about the company’s experience in the use of the heat pumps for high-temperature heat recovery systems. It was about the possibility of using waste heat from refrigeration plants, flue gases, exhaust air in the heating systems, water supply, preliminary and additional heating of water, heating of water for swimming pools. For such facilities as hotels, restaurants, food industry enterprises, EMERSON CLIMATE TECHNOLOGIES has already developed specific technical solutions.
Design of the compressor, the heart of the refrigeration circuit of any installation, also changes. Igor Shokin, Consulting Engineer of BITZER CIS, said that the BITZER compressors and their electronic components are becoming a single unit. Year after year, BITZER equips compressors with increasingly “smart” elements. In particular, the algorithms for self-regulation and auto-tuning of the compressor have already been implemented.
The latest models of the BITZER compressors are equipped with a frequency drive, which overheats in powerful units. To remove heat, the company’s engineers introduced a separate refrigerant circuit based on the same refrigerant that circulates in the main circuit.
Oleg Tsvetkov, Ph.D., Professor, Head of the Chair of Theoretical Foundations of Heat and Refrigeration of the ITMO University, raised the topic of selecting working substances for the refrigeration circuits. According to him, despite a turn towards environmentally friendly refrigerants, the market recognizes that the race for new refrigerants has also negative consequences. There already is information that often customers refuse modern refrigerants in favor of cheaper natural analogs. So, in one of the cold stores with a capacity of 2 megawatts at a warehouse in the US, the use of refrigerant R32 was considered first, but in the end, propane was used.
Today, the most demanded are the refrigerants from the group of hydrofluoroolefin. However, in the long term, experts predict an increase in the market share of the natural refrigerants: carbon dioxide, ammonia, propane. In Europe, there are today more than 5,500 supermarkets with refrigeration systems built on the base of carbon dioxide. By 2020, this amount is expected to triple. In the US, the number of existing facilities using natural refrigerants are much smaller, but a similar trend also takes place. If in 2013 carbon dioxide as a refrigerant was used only in 2 supermarkets in the US, then in 2015 the number of such facilities increased to 52.
The matter of cryogenics
Representatives of the company NPO GELIYMASH, one of the leaders of the cryogenic market of the country, spoke about the production, model range and applications of the turboexpanders — units designed to expand compressed gases with the accomplishment of useful work.
Exactly turboexpanders are the main components of the modern cryogenic plants. They are used in air separation plants, liquefiers of nitrogen, hydrogen, helium, natural gas and other units. The equipment of NPO GELIYMASH is in demand not only in Russia, but also abroad. Thus, some models of turboexpanders are used in the hydrogen liquefaction plants in the USA, in a helium refrigerator in China (Figure 4), in the natural gas processing stations in Uzbekistan.
NPO GELIYMASH designs and manufactures turboexpanders, and also offers services of the installation supervision, commissioning of equipment, training of the personnel, warranty and service maintenance, repair and modernization of equipment.
Some create ice, some destroy
Two presentations at the conference “Development of the industry of cold at the present stage — 2017” were devoted to the creation of high-quality ice cover. Galina Goncharova, Ph.D., Director of GP REFRIGERATION AND ENGINEERING CENTER, told about the specific features of ice in modern sports palaces.
Preparation of ice is a complex technological process. If you just pour the water out of the hoses and freeze it, the ice, of course, will be obtained, but it’s better not to mention its quality. Paints also affect the ice. Moreover, each element which is be in contact with ice, should undergo special testing.
For ice hockey and figure skating, ice strength is important. To increase it, special modifiers are used.
For skating and short track, sliding properties come first (Figure 5). At the same time, for the different speed ranges, the ice should have different slipperiness. Hardening modifiers are also needed for skaters, but only on the top layer of ice, while the “ice hockey” ice is “impregnated” with modifiers evenly throughout its thickness.
Sergey Rusakov, Technical Director of RUSENERGOMONTAZH, spoke about the impact of the environment on the ice surface. Ice behaves almost like an absolutely black body: it absorbs all the energy that puts on it. The decisive importance in this case is the material of the ceiling of the ice arena, it is the ceiling that has the greatest impact on the ice.
To reduce this influence, the technologies such as aluminum foil shielding and the use of a steel profiled sheet as the material for the ceiling are used. In this case, the first method allows to reduce the radiant component by 3.3 times, the second — by 1.8 times.
Another factor that has a negative impact on the ice, is the illumination of the arena. In the visible range of radiation, ice is a translucent substance, that is, we deal with the processes of reflection, light transmission and absorption. Of the great importance are the quality of ice, the base on which the ice is laid, the drawings on ice. Among other negative factors should be mentioned the condensation of water vapor from the air and the general heat in the room.
Andrey Kuznetsov, graduate student of the Moscow State University of Railways, has a quite opposite task. Under the scientific supervision of Lyubov Sladkova, Ph.D., Professor, he deals with the problems of fighting the ice, in particular, ice on the streets of the city.
Special iInterest in the studies of Andrey Kuznetsov attracted the process of destruction of ice by a working element in the form of a ball. The mathematical model of the phenomenon was developed by D. Heisin, V. Kurdyumov and V. Likhomanov in 1975. The model describes the impact of steel balls on the ice cover.
During experiments, it was found out that the ice is a sort of fused crystals, the destruction of which occurs along the slip planes. Depending on the temperature of ice, the working element in the form of a ball or in the form of a wedge is the most effective, but the boundary of the ice breakdown zones in case of using the wedge shape working element is lower.
The report of Andrey Kuznetsov was presented during the School of Young Scientists named after Professor I. Kalnin. Among other reports, it is necessary to mention the topics devoted to the development of a heat pump distiller, the determination of the productivity of the tubular ice generators and the energy-saving refrigeration systems with a cold accumulator, which attracted attention of the representatives of commercial firms.
The extensive program of events is scheduled by ROSSIUZKHOLODPROM for the next year, which, according to tradition, will be a part of the Business Program of the exhibition “CLIMATE WORLD-2018”.
The review was prepared by Yury Khomutsky,
Technical Editor of the magazine “World of Climate”
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