On September 6th, a ceremonial meeting of the staff of the Department of Metal Forming, or as many call it, the "Department of Rolling", was held in the Sigma academic building. Current employees, veterans, and industrial partners gathered to recall the glorious 70-year history of the department and look into its future. One of the guests of honour was Professor Vasily Kraynov, who had come to the department as a student in 1956 and left at the age of 80. He worked in one place all his life and never regretted it. He is a true chronicler of the team.
"Our head, Vladimir Vydrin, organized the educational processes and training of personnel in his own way," said Vasily Kraynov. "All teaching and scientific staffs were formed only from students who graduated from the department. There were many areas − sheet forging, production of alloy steel grades, plastometry − I will not list them all, and each area worked in its own way, and to some extent there was healthy competition. But we were not jealous, because we knew each other's work. We lived very amicably."
The ceremonial meeting was attended by the Director of the Institute of Engineering and Technology Mikhail Ivanov, delegations of industrial partner enterprises: PAO ChMK (Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant), JSC ChTPZ (Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant), PAO ChKPZ (Chelyabinsk Forging and Pressing Plant), KONAR industrial group, LLC TMK Research Centre, and the Cheltec group of companies. The entire history of the Department of Metal Forming is closely connected with real production, and now this connection is unbreakable.
"In the metallurgical process, after receiving iron in the form of ingots or liquid metal, the next stage of processing is rolling. That is, this department is built into the technology of obtaining any metal product, which will then become a car, a telephone, a building," said Mikhail Ivanov, Director of the SUSU Institute of Engineering and Technology. "Therefore, the Department of Metal Forming is significant and key in the technological process. And all the heads of enterprises know and understand this, so they treat graduates of the department with relevance and are very favourable to them."
"I can say that the management of ChTPZ is actually 90% graduates of SUSU, and the production and technology block is 75% graduates of specialized departments, primarily from the Department of Metal Forming," summarized chief engineer of the Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant Konstantin Usanov. "We expect that we will continue to receive the most well-trained future managers and specialists who graduated from this department. That is, first of all, this is the personnel potential aimed at solving applied production problems. And, of course, we count on cooperation in solving those issues that we cannot solve ourselves, where some research is needed, fundamental knowledge, which SUSU specializes in."
Representatives of partner enterprises presented the department celebrating its anniversary with commemorative signs and valuable gifts. ChTPZ handed over passports for office equipment that scientists need in their work.
The head of the department, Professor Aleksandr Vydrin, noted that our region’s metallurgical enterprises are, first and foremost, the main employers, but interaction in science is also strengthening.
"We are currently carrying out research work for the Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant. We are at the negotiation stage, but, in fact, we have already begun to cooperate with the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant," said Professor Vydrin. "It is still at the level of educational issues with the Forging and Pressing Plant and the Konar group, but I hope that one thing will follow another and close cooperation on fundamental research will begin."
In his speech, Aleksandr Vydrin spoke about the scientific prospects of the rolling department, about the main areas in which researchers are currently working. Some are unique for Russia.
At the ceremonial meeting, the best teachers of the Department of Metal Forming were recognized: they were presented with letters of gratitude from the rector for their work with students.