SPbGASU representatives took part in the III International Transport Festival

From May 19 to May 21, St Petersburg hosted the III International transport festival SpbTransportFest-2022, which was attended by representatives of the St Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering. It comprised an exhibition, concert and business programs, as well as a parade of retro equipment.

The fest was organized by the St Petersburg Transport Committee, St Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise Passazhiravtotrans and the RESTEC Exhibition Association.

On May 20, an exhibition of innovative transport took place at Manezhnaya Square. Among other samples, it presented the electric garbage truck "Electromus" assembled by the production team of Avtopark No. 1 Spetstrans JSC and students of the  SPbGASU Faculty of Automobile and Road Building, a Ford Bronco car with a compressed natural gas engine and a PAZ passenger bus with a cylinder installed to operate in gas-diesel mode. The two designs have also been developed by FA&RB students.

The exhibition was visited by the Governor of St Petersburg Aleksandr Beglov. Andrey Zazykin, Dean of the SPbGASU Faculty of Automobile and Road Building, introduced the transport innovations created on the basis of our university to the guest, told about their technical characteristics and advantages, including environmental friendliness.

During the forum, they awarded the winners of the international competition for young specialists in the automotive industry "AutoEvolution", which is held by the industrial cluster "Automotive North-West" with the support of industry associations and educational organizations. Among the winners are students of the SPbGASU faculty of automobile and road building. In the nomination “Air supply control in a gas-diesel engine based on the Vector NEXT bus”, the second-year undergraduate students Semyon Mikhailov and Dmitry Kutulupov took the first prize. Konstantin Sirochuk and Daniil Levinson (also the second-year undergraduate students) became the first in the nomination "Innovative gas reducer for natural gas based on a Ford Bronco car", and undergraduates Pavel Razumov (second-year student), Evgeny Trofimov (first-year student) and first-year postgraduate student Oleg Nikiforov were acknowledged as the best in the nomination "Design of storage batteries based on a light-tonnage electric vehicle".

As part of the business program, the festival hosted a children's car forum dedicated to the implementation of socially significant projects by schoolchildren and students for the development of the region's transport ecosystem. The section was supervised by Andrey Zazykin and Maya Sviridova, director of the Avtoprom North-West industrial cluster.

Laureates of the AutoEvolution contest made presentations of their projects. So, Semyon Mikhailov and Dmitry Kutulupov spoke about the advantages of a gas-diesel engine (an engine adapted for simultaneous operation on fuel and a gas-air mixture) for the PAZ Vector Next passenger bus. According to Semyon, the use of the gas-diesel mode will reduce operating costs (the amount of savings depends on the percentage of fuel replacement by the mixture). At the same time, the student drew attention to the fact that gas-diesel based on methane is preferable. “Unlike natural gas, methane does not contain mixtures, which means that the engine will work more efficiently,” Semyon explained.

Daniil Levinson spoke about the high potential of natural gas reserves in Russia, which is still little used as a motor fuel. Together with Konstantin Sirochuk, he developed special gas-balloon equipment (additional equipment that is installed on gasoline cars so that they can use both gasoline and gas as fuel), in the gearbox of which natural gas can be used.

The first two projects were carried out under the guidance of Aleksey Penkin, associate professor of the Department of transport maintenance.

Pavel Razumov, representing his group of authors, presented a battery for light trucks. The developers were faced with the task of assembling the battery, taking into account its capacity, the optimal weight of the car and the safety of the battery and the electric vehicle itself. The project used lithium-titanate and lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, from which the structures were assembled. Empirically, the authors found that lithium-iron-phosphate batteries are the best solution: they have a convenient shape for layout, higher specific capacity, half the weight and are quite simple to use.

Pavel is confident in the relevance of the invention. “A garbage truck that travels on small city routes and runs on such a battery is comparable in autonomy to a car powered by a gasoline engine, while, unlike it, it does not emit carbon dioxide,” he stressed, adding that a half-hour recharge during the working day is enough for the battery: the driver can carry it out when he returns to the enterprise during lunch break.{gallery name="адф2405"}

“The projects we heard about today have great potential. I hope you learned a lot of useful things and made new contacts. Continue to develop, and the Faculty of automobile and road building will help you with this,” summed up Andrey Zazykin.

In his speech, Andrey Zazykin spoke about the training of personnel for the transport industry at the SPbGASU faculty of automobile and road building: “The target figures for admission to undergraduate studies this year are higher than in the previous four years, which indicates an increased need for transport personnel from the state. And the employment rates of our graduates in their specialty at the exit from the university indicate a high demand for them in the labour market.”

At the end of the session, its curator Maya Sviridova suggested that the speakers combine their experience and create a working group to implement the School-University-Enterprise trajectory. “Our challenge is to bridge the gap between education and job competencies,” she said.

Text: Aleksandra Podolnikova
Photo: Ekaterina Nikiforova

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