Machine Builders Day is celebrated in Russia on the last Sunday of September. We talked with the Director of the Mechanical Engineering Research Institute Ramil Zakirov on why this holiday is so important to our university.
– December 15, 1943 is the birthday of Chelyabinsk Mechanical Engineering Institute (SUSU today). We originate from mechanical engineering. Please tell us about the traditions which appeared and exist in our university in this direction.
– Over all these 80 years, starting from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, we have been training specialists in mechanical engineering. Our region has always been considered a metallurgical one, but today mechanical engineering has become equal to metallurgy in terms of the scope of work. There are no new metallurgical plants, all of them are a legacy of the Soviet times, but mechanical engineering enterprises appear all the time. Modern good mechanical engineering enterprises in the Chelyabinsk Region are a large conglomerate in the field of mechanical engineering, and all these enterprises are closely connected with our university: both in personnel training and in the research and development work that we are engaged in. I can say that today our South Ural State University, if we take research and development work, is 80% dedicated to mechanical engineering. That is why, Machine Builders Day is, for the majority of the staff members of our university, is a professional holiday.
– Can we say that mechanical engineering in the South Ural region emerged simultaneously with our university?
– One hundred percent yes! Ural Automobile Plant and Chelyabinsk Forge-and-Press Plant opened in the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, and literally a year after the Chelyabinsk Mechanical Engineering Institute appeared. These enterprises were the locomotives, the flagships, they created the foundation of our mechanical engineering.
– Please name the most outstanding scientists that made a great contribution to the development of the industry in the South Ural region.
– We have Doctor of Sciences Viktor Guzeev, who used to be the Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and now is the Head of the Department of Automated Manufacturing Engineering. He trained a big number of specialists, who are working almost at all industrial enterprises of our region. I can mention Yuriy Rozhdestvenskiy, from the famous Automobile and Tractor Engineering Faculty. They are still working, still on duty.
– Could you please tell us about the biggest achievements of SUSU in the field of mechanical engineering?
– We provide training of personnel, this is our main goal. In addition, we use our potential for serious scientific developments. Jointly with the KAMAZ enterprise we conducted great work: hypoid transmission of the drive axle. Jointly with OOO PK Khodovye Sistemy of the Chelyabinsk Region, we developed a tracking system for a bulldozer. A lot of work is being done jointly with Ural Automobile Plant, everyone has already heard about our Arctic technology. We created three machines: an Arctic bus, a semi-trailer and a tractor. The Spetsagregat plant is the major machine-building enterprise in the Chelyabinsk Region, with which we developed an airfield machine. We created a line of municipal machines in the Kurgan Region. In Kaluga, at the Merkator enterprise, we also deal with municipal equipment. We made calculations for electric buses for Moscow, trams produced by the Moscow company PKTS were also made using our calculations. These are the large-scale, ambitious projects that have been developed over the last 10 years.
– What is the main goal and task of the Mechanical Engineering Research Institute?
– Firstly, to train highly qualified specialists. Secondly, to help our scientists implement their inventions and developments on practice. We have several modern laboratories here where prototypes are manufactured. Whatever a scientist or a postgraduate is working on (a grant from the Russian Science Foundation, a government assignment), with the help of our unique equipment we can complete any order quickly, efficiently and much cheaper than on the market. And of course, we are working within the framework of economic contracts and carry out R&D. Our institute is the main window for business and industrial partners who come with their requests to solve their problems. Today, the most important task is reverse engineering, and our specialists are very closely involved in this. SUSU has earned a name, and we are already well-known in our country, people come to us from all regions of Russia.
– How is the educational process for mechanical engineering students organised? What is new in it: equipment, the approach itself?
– Educational programmes probably haven’t changed much: we still provide fundamental knowledge. But students apply their knowledge on most modern equipment, which complies with the world standards and is not available at every technical university. New in training is the computer design. We have Computer Engineering Centre at SUSU, it has state-of-the-art workplaces, good programs, and our students take internships there. We give them some part and say: make a 3D model and develop documentation based on it. It is very useful. And not only our Department of Automated Manufacturing Engineering is engaged in this; students from the Institute of Natural Sciences and Mathematics are also starting to practice at the engineering centre. They are absolutely great! They interned with me over the summer and I really liked them. Maybe, after graduating from their institute, they would start working in mechanical engineering. Our equipment and our programs allow students to understand the process, the essence of what is required today for mechanical engineering enterprises. They want to become designers and technologists, and we give them such knowledge.
– What, in your opinion, is the main global trend in mechanical engineering now?
– Transferring almost all machines to environmentally friendly power sources, and our university is engaged in this. New electric motors, or hybrid powertrains, are a trend all over the world. Today we are developing electrically powered municipal equipment. Moscow is ordering machines that are entirely electric. Ecology and efficiency of machines is a global trend that we adhere to.
– What would you say to your fellow colleagues, mechanical engineers: scientists and enterprise employees?
– I would like to wish enterprise employees many good orders, high wages, and the state-of-the-art equipment. I would also like to wish that they would happily welcome our specialists and our graduates. And I wish our scientists close collaboration with our industrial partners, these are our employers, these are our good customers. Health and prosperity to all. On Sunday the weather is expected to be good, we will all celebrate the Machine Builders Day together. May there be more such sunny days in everyone’s life.