Ways to Reduce Risks When Building the Digital Economy in Russia. Educational Aspect

А group of authors of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, working within the framework of the activity of Coordination Council for the Federal Educational and Methodical Associations on education in the field of “Engineering, Technology and Technical Sciences” have undertaken a comprehensive study dedicated to the processes of the digital economy formation. More than two hundred primary sources of reference have been analyzed. Several main groups of risks associated with the transition to global digitalization have been defined and classified. Further research results described in this article allow to characterize the specific features of the occurrence of risks in the Russian Federation and to determine the ways of reducing these risks.In addition to the six groups of risks which are currently possible to arise and which are characteristic of the entire world space, the authors have revealed a number of several additional risks typical only of Russia. One of the key areas in Russia that poses a whole range of various risks is the education system. The authors have analyzed and classified the policies and moves suggested by the researchers and politicians to reduce the likelihood of these specific risks occurrence.The qualitative leap of the educational process in Russia is possible only by means of the formation of some new competence profiles of educational institutions graduates with reference to the digital economy development conditions. The authors have defined seven types of competencies that are relevant for the transition of Russia to the digital economy and developed twelve pilot educational modules necessary for their formation

Metallurgical and Mechanical Characterization of High-Speed Friction Stir Welded AA 6082-T6 Aluminum Alloy

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of the high welding speed on the mechanical properties and their relations to microstructural characteristics of butt friction stir welded joints with the use of 6082-T6 aluminum alloy. The aluminum sheets of 2.0 mm thick were friction stir welded at low (conventional FSW) and high welding speeds (HSFSW) of 200 and 2500 mm/min, respectively. The grain size in the nugget zone (NZ) was decreased; the width of the softened region was narrowed down as well as the lowest microhardness value located in the heat-affected zone (HAZ) was enhanced by HSFSW. The increasing welding speed resulted in the higher ultimate tensile strength and lower elongation, but it had a slight influence on the yield strength. The differences in mechanical properties were explained by analysis of microstructural changes and tensile fracture surfaces of the welded joints, supported by the results of the numerical simulation of the temperature distribution and material flow. The fracture of the conventional FSW joint occurred in the HAZ, the weakest weld region, while all HSFSW joints raptured in the NZ. This demonstrated that both structural characteristics and microhardness distribution influenced the actual fracture locations

Triggered incommensurate transition in PbHfO3

We report a type of structural phase transitions in dielectric materials: the triggered incommensurate (IC) transition. We demonstrate evidence for such a transition in the perovskite antiferroelectric PbHfO3 by means of single-crystal x-ray diffraction, diffuse, and inelastic-scattering experiments, which we interpret using the Landau theory of phase transitions. This transition is not driven by an IC soft mode, as is the case for the majority of IC dielectrics, but by the soft mode associated with a different, coexisting order parameter related to antiferrodistortive (AFD) tilts of the oxygen octahedra. When cooling from the high-temperature cubic phase these two order parameters are established simultaneously and discontinuously at T-IC approximate to 468 K. Two lattice instabilities are present in the cubic phase: AFD instability with critical temperature T-0 approximate to 441 K and ferroelectric instability with T-0 approximate to 408 K. The IC instability is absent. The analysis of the transition mechanism within the Landau theory of coupled order parameters indicates that the transition is of triggered character, conditioned upon the attractive biquadratic coupling between the IC modulation and the AFD octahedral tilts, and is driven by the AFD soft mode