Tag: Tomsk Polytechnic University

Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) has opened a new subdivision based on the School of Earth Sciences and Engineering. The subdivision will unite a wide range of research areas and will allow carrying out more works for the benefit of industrial partners of the university.

According to Natalya Guseva, Director of the TPU School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, the opening of a new center in the structure of the School and the reorganization of the Innovation Research Laboratory for Drilling, Washing and Slurry Solutions are caused by the development of staff’s competences.

“At the moment, the laboratory staff work in new research areas and can solve a quite wider range of tasks. It will allow the TPU School of Earth Sciences and Engineering to enhance cooperation with industrial partners and positioning on the market for services, as well as to take part in more large-scale projects, where different competencies are required,” Natalya Guseva says.

Konstantin Minaev, Head of the Innovation Research Laboratory for Drilling, Washing and Slurry Solutions, will lead the new center. The subdivisions of the center are located in the TPU academic buildings No. 2, 19 and at the TPU Science Park. JSC Tomskneft VNK, an industrial partner of TPU, contributed to the renovation and re-equipment of premises in academic building No. 19.

“First of all, I would like to thank all the team, as it is a serious step on team building for solving serious tasks at the frontier of the petroleum industry. The center opening will allow expanding the range of research and engineering works in petrochemistry due to the new and up-to-date equipment, interdisciplinary contacts and query enhancement from industrial partners. It is a reply to the question on breaking down barriers among university laboratories,” Andrey Yakovlev, Acting Rector of TPU, said at the center opening.

The most important is that the Center opens additional opportunities for students: they can choose a trajectory, come to the place where new projects are born, use the newest equipment.”

The Research Center for Petrochemistry and Technology will unite five areas: oilfield chemistry, drilling fluids, slurry solutions, reservoir physics, the chemistry of petroleum and petroleum products. The skeleton staff is the laboratory staff, however, new experts, as well as young scientists: graduates and postgraduates, including international ones, will be invited.

“We can carry out large-scale projects, we possess accumulated experience that will allow us to holistically solve serious tasks both in a research area and for industrial partners. I am sure we will have interesting work ahead,” Konstantin Minaev, Head of the Center for Petrochemistry and Technology, addressed the staff.

The Center is planned to carry out both research and industrial projects, however, the key point will be focused on cooperation with industrial partners. To equip the Center on the program of renewal of instruments, there was purchased high-class equipment including a rheometer and tensiometer worth over 15 million rubles.

There was no equipment of such level for research in oilfield chemistry at TPU. It will allow our staff members to become participants of more serious projects for the benefit of industrial partners and will allow our students to master the devices during their study time,” Konstantin Minaev explained.

In total, there was spent over 70 million rubles during several years for installation and purchasing miscellaneous equipment for different units of the Center.

“Today, we see the result of the cooperative path that was travelled by our laboratories in approaching and building relations with each other. At the moment, different subdivisions can say that they can implement large-scale projects for the industry,” Artem Boev, TPU Vice-Rector for Technological Development and Entrepreneurship.

Students of Tomsk Polytechnic University have come out as winners in the regional stage of Abilympics, a championship of professional skills for people with disabilities, have been announced.

This year, 186 representatives of Tomsk and Tomsk Oblast universities, vocational schools and schools took part in the Championship. They competed for a professional championship in 24 competencies from web design and information security to multimedia journalism and industrial robotics.

Nikita Morozov and Kirill Levchenko, students of the TPU School of Computer Science and Robotics, represented TPU at the Championship. They competed in the Database Administration and Design of Characters/Animation competences respectively.

In the Database Administration competence, the contestants had to create a database using Microsoft Access 2016, a database management system, had to fill it with similar information, as well as had to provide an opportunity for data access and had to organize a user interface to work with the database.

The contestants of the Design of Characters/Animation competence worked on creating the images of a 2D character for a public service announcement raising civic consciousness and patriotism. The boys had to animate a picture and prepare a summary of it.

According to the results of the Championship, Nikita Morozov became a winner in his competence, while Kirill Levchenko took the third position in the Design of Characters/Animation competence. They were awarded medals, diplomas and gifts.

Abilympics is an international non-profit movement that aims to develop the Abilympics system of professional skill competitions for people with disabilities in the Russian Federation.

The team titled as Environmental Engineering Group representing Tomsk Polytechnic University, Tomsk State University, Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radio-Electronics, Tomsk State University of Architecture and Construction reached the final of Urban Greenhouse Challenge: Reforest, an international competition of student projects.

The team members shared what helped them to create a successful project and whether it was easy to work together with students from different universities.

It is the first time Urban Greenhouse Challenge: Reforest, international competition has been held at a Russian university. Tomsk Polytechnic University became its main organizer. The key task of the contestants was to develop a project of a city farm, an autonomous greenhouse for growing coniferous and deciduous seedlings on multi-tiered shelving units. The prize pool of the competition is $10,000.

According to the team members of the Environmental Engineering Group, the main concept of their project since the beginning of the project has not changed. It is a small city greenhouse that can be located in public spaces to enhance awareness of the population on the problem of growing coniferous plants and to demonstrate the process itself.

The contestants are also willing that their complex could operate without an operator and are intended to pay special attention to the design and environmental friendliness of the project so that the greenhouse could harmoniously fit the city landscapes.

“An educational course that was quite deep and fundamental, as well as consultations with mentors helped us so much. It was helpful to hear the experts’ opinions as some moments even did not come to our minds. For instance, we were suggested to pay attention to material recycling and reuse,” the students say.

Moreover, all the team members study different majors: optical engineering, circuit design and programming, ecology, architecture and construction, marketing. Despite the different experience and situation with a distance learning mode, it did not obstruct them to work well together and invent their concept.

“Everyone has a similar vision of our concept from the beginning. Due to the fact that all the team members have competencies in different areas, we could have created the final concept of the project quite fast. Simultaneously, we learned something new from each other, for instance, I learned a lot about microclimate control systems in greenhouses.

“We did not face any problems with communication as we were in touch on social media and via Zoom. It was much convenient to work in this way as we all have different opportunities and schedules. At the moment, one of the team members is in Italy. What about our chances for victory, we have cautious optimism.

“From what we have seen and heard, we have realized that our vision of a city greenhouse is different from what the other teams are developing. We love our project and we are sure that it will be positively assessed,” Sofia Romanenko, a student of the TPU School of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, the head of the team, shared her thoughts.

The TPU School of Non-Destructive Testing has received a new welding robot. It will be used for laboratory and practical classes from the next study year. Students will learn how to program robots for welding at hands-off productions.

The robot is produced by KUKA, its cost is over 10 million rubles. It is currently being commissioned at the TPU Center for Industrial Tomography (academic building No. 18, 7, Savinykh Street).

“There is welding at any up-to-date production and welding specialists are in high demand. TPU trains undergraduate and graduate welding engineers. These are specialists who can create new equipment for welding, renew the existing one and automate welding processes. Although digitalization and robotic automation of the industry form new requirements for such engineers: competencies in programming robots are required,” Pavel Baranov, Head of the Division for Electronic Engineering of the TPU School of Non-Destructive Testing, says.

The robot is a manipulator to which any up-to-date welding power supply can be connected. It is capable to both weld and simulate different melding conditions.

“Robot welding makes the top of future professions. Robots improve welding speed, quality, repeatability of a result that is why it will be difficult to imagine hands-off productions of Industry 4.0 without them. Nowadays, there is no training in robot welding anywhere. The new robot allowed us to introduce new majors for our undergraduate and graduate students. The students will write their software in computer classes so that the robot will be capable to find a welding position and weld. After they test their codes using the real robot in the laboratory,” Pavel Baranov explains.

TPU has recently received a welding simulator. It fully simulates the welder’s work, helps to master main welding conditions, records mistakes and evaluates the quality of a welding joint. The welding simulator will also be applied to the educational process in the next study year. The students will begin to study the kinds and technology of welding using the welding simulator and then continue their training using the real equipment.

The results of the 2020 Competition for a Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences for Young Scientists of Russia and Students of Higher Educational Institutions of Russia for the Best Research Works have been announced.

According to the results of the 2020 Competition in Physicotechnical Problems of the Energy Industry, Kristina Paushkina, a second-year graduate student of the TPU School of Energy and Power Engineering, was conferred the medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences for her research work “Scientific Rationale of the Application Perspectives of Energetically, Environmentally and Economically Efficient Composite Fuels in Heat Power Engineering”. Kristina’s research supervisor is Dmitry Glushkov, Associate Professor of the TPU Research School of High-Energy Physics.

“The research is the continuation of research works under the supervision of Pavel Strizhak, Professor of the TPU Butakov Research Center. There was conducted experimental and theoretical research of the ignition process and combustion of composite fuels based on waste coal adding combustible municipal solid waste. There were researched not only the characteristics of ignition and combustion but also the ecological ones, such as the concentration of sulphur oxide and nitrogen in flue gases. Based on the obtained data, there was developed a feasibility study of the application of the obtained fuels at the existing facilities of the heat power engineering industry on the example of Kemerovo Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast and Tomsk Oblast,” Kristina Paushkina says.

The Competition is held to identify and support talented young researchers, to contribute to the professional growth of scientific youth, to encourage creative initiatives of young scientists of Russia and students of higher educational institutions of Russia in conducting research.

Annually, the Russian Academy of Sciences confers 21 medals with prizes of 50,000 rubles each on young scientists for the best research works and 21 medals with prizes of 25,000 rubles each on students of higher educational institutions of Russia.

Scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University and Ural Federal University (UrFU) have demonstrated the high environmental efficiency of fuel for thermal power plants based on a mixture of various types of waste. According to the authors, the use of such fuel compositions instead of coal can reduce harmful oxide air pollution by 70%.

The use of fossil fuels in the ever-increasing global energy demand generates large amounts of gas and solid emissions into the environment, the TPU scientists said. According to the International Energy Agency, the combustion of fossil fuels causes over 90% of the world’s pollution with sulphur and nitrogen oxides, which cause acute diseases of humans, animals and plants. Moreover, 60% of this amount accounts for coal.

One solution to address this crisis is the introduction of water-containing slurry fuels based on coal and oil by-products, municipal solid waste, wood waste and other biomass, the scientists said. According to the researchers, such compositions could be used at thermal power plants instead of conventional energy sources such as coal and fuel oil.

The research conducted by TPU and UrFU scientists showed that sulphur and nitrogen oxide concentrations during the combustion of fuel compositions can be reduced by 70% compared to coal combustion.

“The use of fuel, based on waste and industrial by-products, not only reduces the load on the environment but also enables to recycle large volumes of accumulated waste, involving unused but energetically promising raw materials. Moreover, it helps to conserve non-renewable fossil fuels,” Galina Nyashina, Teaching Assistant of the TPU Research School of High-Energy Physics, told Sputnik news agency.

The scientists also determined the presence of water vapour in the combustion zone of the thermal installation contributes to the conversion of some sulphur and nitrogen into inactive forms incapable of forming oxides, which further reduces the pollution level.

The research findings were published in the Science of The Total Environment academic journal.

The research team intends to continue studying the chemical and physical combustion processes of fuel compositions based on hydrocarbon raw materials and waste to further improve them.

The finalists of the Urban Greenhouse Challenge: Reforest, an international competition of students held at Tomsk Polytechnic University this year, have been working on their projects jointly with their mentors.

It is the first time Urban Greenhouse Challenge: Reforest has been held at a Russian university. Tomsk Polytechnic University became its main organizer. The key task of the contestants is to develop a project of a city farm, an autonomous greenhouse for growing coniferous and deciduous seedlings on multi-tiered shelving units. The prize pool of the competition is $10,000.

Over 20 teams from 12 countries took part in the selection round of the competition. Ultimately, the expert jury selected the 10 best projects. These projects include teams from Tomsk, St Petersburg, Moscow, Voronezh, Kazakhstan, Novosibirsk and other cities.

“Our teams are working with their mentors individually. The experts are answering their questions, holding video consultations. Based on the results of this cooperation, the contestants are polishing and fine-tuning their projects, as well as are preparing final presentations. The mentors include representatives of our industrial partners, which is very appreciable. We are pleased that our contestants possess an opportunity to receive their consultations and adopt the professional experience in the convenient format for them,” Maxim Volkov, Head of TPU International Cooperation Division, says.

For instance, the contestants can ask questions on industrial design, photonics, automation, biology, horticulture and plant nutrition, ecology and recycling technologies. The mentors include representatives of Schneider Electric, the world expert in energy management and automation with branches in over 100 countries and iFarm, a Russian company creating vertical farms.