UST 2021: Deputy General Designer for Science Spoke About the Company's Achievements in the Field of Science

We continue a series of interviews with the main professionals of Unitsky String Technologies Inc. about the results of the current working year. This time we talked to Sergey Artyushevsky, who supervises the scientific activities of the company.

Sergey, how do you assess the work of the enterprise in the field of scientific activity over 2021?

First of all, I would like to point out the great human resource potential of Unitsky String Technologies Inc.– the parent engineering company in the UST group of companies: more than 600 highly qualified professionals from various fields of science and technology work here.

It is very important that for the current year we have registered 3 research and development (technological) works in the state registry of the national institution "BelISA". Their executor is our company. At the same time, two works have now been successfully completed in accordance with the procedure specified by law, and we plan to complete the third project by the end of 2022.

We also held 4 meetings of the Scientific and Technological Council and adopted the concept of the development of scientific and innovative activities of the Company. This is very important, because the concept shows a general direction to our work on the activation of research activities and the implementation of the results of the research and development work carried out in the Company's activities for the short- and medium-term perspective — 2021-2025.

We are also carefully preparing for accreditation as a scientific entity, therefore, a comprehensive analysis of indicators and results that characterize the scientific, research, technical and innovative activities of the Company for 2016-2021, including with a forecast up to 2025, was carried out.

Sergey, we have heard that the company has a "Laboratory for the development of new materials". What are your employees working on in it? And what results have been achieved in 2021?

The "Laboratory for the Development of New Materials" selects, develops and studies polymeric and composite materials for our transport complexes, for example: compounds, adhesives, composites, protective coatings, paints and others.

Thus, the laboratory has developed and implemented a number of fillers of various cavities in the track structures of string transport complexes, performing both the role of a power component for load transfer and the role of noise and vibration damping materials.

We have selected materials and developed technologies for the use of protective coatings on steel, aluminum, plastics, concrete and wood. And we also conduct climatic tests for the use of protective coatings for string transport complexes in various climatic zones.

It is worth noting that we have also developed materials and, based on them, worked out technologies for pumping concrete and polymeric compounds over long distances (over one kilometer) through small sections of elements of track structures.

The technologies of gluing various materials were also worked out, which formed the basis for the creation of both string rails of the elevated track structure and elements of rolling stock – electric vehicles on steel wheels.

The results of our scientific activity are highly appreciated at the international level: for example, the laboratory in its work closely cooperates with representatives of such world brands as Henkel, Sika, 3M, Jotun. Lankwitzer, Scott Bader, Akzo Nobel and others.

Sergey, what about R&D Administration? What are the most interesting developments you can highlight?

An important achievement of the Department of advanced developments is the completion of a passenger car with an energy hydrogen installation. We have finally received an operational prototype and plan to use these solutions in high-speed (speeds up to 600 km/h) and hyper-speed (speeds up to 1500 km/h) string rail complexes.

This is not a complete list of the work done. You can also recall obtaining a number of patents, the development of fundamentally new solutions in the field of ergonomics and aerodynamics of vehicles and much more. Today we have created our own scientific school of string-rail technologies. The employees of the design organization are the bearers of unique knowledge and experience, which constitutes an important advantage in the market and is one of the main assets of the company.

10 January 2022