2023-05-26
The 5th International Academic Competition on Chemical Engineering Processes and Vessels named after Professor K.F. Bogatykh was hosted by the Department of Petrochemistry and Chemical Engineering of the Faculty of Technology at USPTU and PETON on May 23.A total of 65 people from almost 20 educational institutions of Russia and other countries entered the contest.
Addressing participants and guests of the Academic Competition Tatyana Prosochkina, Head of the Department of Petrochemistry and Chemical Engineering, USPTU, noted that during the existence of the Competition, the number of participants has grown from 4 Russian universities to today's 17 universities representing Azerbaijan (Sumgayit), Kazakhstan (Atyrau), Uzbekistan (Tashkent) and the Russian Federation (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Omsk, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Yaroslavl, Grozny, etc.), composite teams of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Cuba.
Ruslan Khabibrakhmanov, Engineering Director at SRDI Oil & Gas “Peton” LLC, highlighted that the Academic Competition is designed to heighten the interest of the scientific community, business and students in research, scientific and practical activities, and to inspire young scientists to further professional and intellectual development.
The participants were also addressed by Alexandr Moguchev, the Pro-Rector for Teaching and Guidance at USPTU, the Dean of the Faculty of Technology Farkhad Vildanov and Svetlana Churakova, the Head of the Mass Exchange Equipment Department of SRDI O&G “Peton”, who also works as the Deputy Head of the Petrochemical and Chemical Technology Department under the Base Department “Modeling and Design of the Processes and Apparatuses of Chemical Technologies”.
The Olympiad tasks, which the participants attempted to solve, were developed by a team of teachers of the technological faculty of USPTU in cooperation with PETON’s specialists. The topics covered in the tasks included hydrodynamic, thermal and mass exchange processes. The students especially enjoyed the problems involving calculations for the pumping and heat exchange equipment.
The winner in the individual competition was a student of USPTU Nikita Minchenkov, who shared his impressions after the Olympiad:
«I was very glad when I was announced the winner. I was preparing for that, counted on that since earlier I already became the winner of the other all-Russian Olympiad. I had a pretty big responsibility, I had to maintain the level, had to keep “the bar” high.
I liked the Olympiad; I liked the provided tasks. I was especially interested in the mathematical formulation and expression of the technological processes. Also, this Olympiad had its special aspects, which made it different from the other ones. Here, we were provided with 10 tasks, but only 4 hours to solve them, therefore it was practically impossible to complete them all, so we needed to choose.”
First place in the team event was shared by two teams from Kazan National Research Technological University (KNRTU) and Ufa State Petroleum Technical University (USPTU).
«We are participating in this Olympiad for the second time. Last year our team took the 3rd place, after which we drew adequate conclusions, did the error correction work and here is the result – we took the 1st place (the team members are smiling).
All the tasks are very interesting. They are not only complicated, demanding highest levels of concentration, but also interesting to solve. They are like riddles.
The Olympiad named after the professor, D.Eng.Sc. Bogatykh K.F. is defined by the fact that the participants are provided with the technical means (e.g. Excel) to find a solution, and they are not limited to calculator and a piece of paper, since in real work scenarios all project design works are being done using a computer. It would be more interesting if next time we were provided with MathCad software (the team members are smiling again)”, - told the participant of the team from KNRTU.
The Olympiad was held in a mixed format: some contestants participated in the event remotely. However, according to the organizers and members of the panel this did not impede the creation of a positive mood for making acquaintance and sharing new ideas and experience. On the whole, as they noted in PETON, the aim of the academic and research Olympiad was the creation of favorable environment for discovery and support of talented students, as well as facilitating development and realization of their intellectual abilities and knowledge.
The ceremony of awarding the winners and runners-up of the Olympiad took place at the Russian petrochemical forum in the VDNKH-EKSPO exhibition complex in Ufa on May 24.