Ural Federal University: The Competencies of Ural Scientists are Involved in the Development of Autoclaves
The process of development of modern autoclaves for production of composite materials comes to a new level within the framework of the Ural Interregional Research and Education Center “Advanced Industrial Technologies and Materials”. Ural Federal University in partnership with “Megahim-Project” company implements very perspective project in this direction. Today the Minister of Industry and Science of Sverdlovsk region Sergey Perestoronin personally got acquainted with this project, which was supported in May within the framework of the contest of the government of Sverdlovsk region.
The composite materials with unique properties every year find more and more wide application in modern aircraft building, machine building, rocket production, construction as well as at the production of space equipment, sport goods and some types of medical products. The essential part of composite materials is produced using autoclave technological equipment – hermetic apparatuses for different operations requiring heating under pressure higher than atmospheric pressure.
Full name of the project: “Development and implementation of hardware-software complex for autoclave polymerization processes of heat protective coatings and parts from advanced polymer composite materials on the basis of different types of autoclaves”.
“Within the framework of the complex project, scientists of UrFU conduct research and development works. We focus on the development of specialized software tools for automating the design of autoclave complexes based on domestic parametric computer-aided design systems. In addition, we carry out calculations of the stress-strain state of the autoclave structure taking into account thermal stress and pressure at different modes of operation,” says Alexander Petunin, professor of the Department of Information Technologies and Design Automation.
The R&D project also includes the development of mathematical models and software for some subsystems of the APCS. These tools will be used for simulation of coolant circulation processes for optimal flow of heat and mass transfer at different temperatures and pressures. Then the developed software will be integrated into automated process control systems for stepless heating and cooling processes.
The work performed by scientists and specialists of UrFU will allow to significantly reduce time and quality of design documentation when developing software and hardware autoclave complexes produced by “Megahim-Project”, as well as to optimize design, material intensity of autoclave equipment and accuracy of temperature control in polymerization processes. Another result of the work will be the solution of a task that is important for the company, which is to reduce the time and quality of preparation of bids for the delivery of autoclave import-substituting complexes for Russian enterprises.
In May of this year, the company “Megahim-Project” was among the winners of the Sverdlovsk Regional Government tender and received funds to reimburse part of the cost to implement in industrial production of research and development (R&D) participants of the scientific and educational world-class center “Advanced Industrial Technologies and Materials”. All in all five companies won the contest, which received from 5 to 25 million rubles.