Сборник материалов международной научной конференции студентов, магистрантов, аспирантов

Ю.С. Сойко, С.Н. Матяш

Республика Беларусь, Брест, БрГТУ

Научный руководитель – Д.В. Новик

INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS NOWADAYS

Industrial electronics is a branch of electronics that deals with power electronic devices such as thyristors, SCRs, AC/DC drives, meters, sensors, analyzers, load cells automatic test equipment, multimeters, data recorders, relays, resistors, semiconductors, transistors, waveguides, scopes, amplifiers, radio frequency (RF) circuit boards, timers, counters, etc. It covers all of the methods and facets of control systems, instrumentation, mechanism and diagnosis, signal processing and automation of various industrial applications. The core research areas of industrial electronics include electrical power machine designs, power conditioning and power semiconductor devices. A lot of consideration is given to power economy and energy management in consumer electronic products.

So to put it simply, industrial electronics refers to equipment, tools and processes that involve electrical equipment in an industrial setting. This could be a laboratory, automotive plant, power plant or construction site. Industrial electronics are also used extensively in chemical processing plants, oil/gas/petroleum plants, mining and metal processing units, electronics and semiconductor manufacturing.

The scope of industrial electronics ranges from the design and maintenance of simple electrical fuses to complicated programmable logic controllers (PLCs), solid-state devices and motor drives. Industrial electronics can handle the automation of all types of modern day electrical and mechanical industrial processes. Some of the specialty equipment used in industrial electronics includes: variable frequency converter and inverter drives, human machine interfaces, hydraulic positioners and computer or microprocessor controlled robotics.

The electronics industry, especially meaning consumer electronics, emerged in the 20th century and has now become a global industry worth billions of dollars. Contemporary society uses all manner of electronic devices built in automated or semi-automated factories operated by the industry.

The industry now employs large numbers of electronics engineers and electronics technicians to design, develop, test, manufacture, install, and repair electrical and electronic equipment such as communication equipment, medical monitoring devices, navigational equipment, and computers.

Consumer electronics is that which is intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver. Later products include personal computers, telephones, MP3 players, audio equipment, televisions, calculators, GPS automotive electronics, digital cameras and players and recorders using video media such as DVDs, VCRs or camcorders. Increasingly these products have become based on digital technologies, and have largely merged with the computer industry in what is increasingly referred to as the consumerization of information technology.

The size of the industry and the use of toxic materials, as well as the difficulty of recycling have led to a series of problems with electronic waste. International regulation and environmental legislation have been developed in an attempt to address the issues.

The United States is the world leader in producing electronic waste, tossing away about 3 million tons each year. China already produces about 2.3 million tons (2010 estimate) domestically, second only to the United States. And, despite having banned e-waste imports, China remains a major e-waste dumping ground for developed countries. The UNEP estimate that the amount of e-waste being produced – including mobile phones and computers – could rise by as much as 500 percent over the next decade in some countries, such as India.

Increasing environmental awareness has led to changes in electronics design to reduce or eliminate toxic materials and to reduce energy consumption. The landmark Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) were released by the European Commission in 2002.

1. 
   Industrial equipment resource [Electronic resource]. – Mode of access: http://www.industrial101.com/electronics/. – Date of access: 15.03.2015.
   
2. 
   Electronics Industry [Electronic resource] // Wikipedia. – Mode of access: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_industry. - Date of access: 15.03.2015.
   

В статье раскрывается понятие «промышленная электроника», её многогранность, важность и значение в современном мире. Даётся описание многообразия отраслей, которые охватывает промышленная электроника, включая использование продуктов промышленной электроники в быту. Также затрагиваются проблемные вопросы воздействия на окружающую среду электронных отходов и их утилизация.

К.С. Солоп

Республика Беларусь, Брест, БрГУ имени А.С. Пушкина

Научный руководитель – Н.В. Иванюк

THE ARAL SEA: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

The Aral Sea was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south. The name is roughly translated as “Sea of Islands”, referring to over 1,100 islands that once dotted its waters; in Old Turkish aral means “island”. The Aral Sea drainage basin encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of 68,000 km², the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects. By 2007, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes – the North Aral Sea, the eastern and western basins of the larger South Aral Sea, and one smaller lake between the North and South Aral Seas. By 2009, the southeastern lake had disappeared and southwestern lake had retreated to a thin strip at the extreme west of the former southern sea; in subsequent years, occasional water flows led to the southeastern lake sometimes being replenished to a small degree. Satellite images taken by NASA in August 2014 revealed that for the first time in modern history the eastern basin of the Aral Sea had completely dried up. The eastern basin is now called the Aralkum desert.

In an ongoing effort in Kazakhstan to save and replenish the North Aral Sea, a dam project was completed in 2005; by 2008, the water level in this lake had risen by 12 m compared to 2003. Now salinity has dropped, and fish are again found in sufficient numbers. The maximum depth of the North Aral Sea is about 42 m.

The shrinking of the Aral Sea has been called “one of the planet’s worst environmental disasters”. The region's once-prosperous fishing industry has been essentially destroyed, bringing unemployment and economic hardship. The Aral Sea region is also heavily polluted, with consequent serious public health problems. The departure of the sea has also caused local climate change, with summers becoming hotter and drier, and winters colder and longer.

The Aral Sea formed about 5.5 million years ago due to a fall in sea level and the uplift of the Elburz and Caucasus Mountains. It is generally believed that the Amu Darya did not flow into the shallow depression that now forms the Aral Sea until the beginning of the Holocene, and it is known that the Amu Darya flowed into the Caspian via the Uzboy channel until the Holocene. The Syr Darya formed a large lake in the Kyzyl Kum during the Pliocene known as the Mynbulak depression. The ecosystems of the Aral Sea and the river deltas feeding into it have been nearly destroyed. The receding sea has left huge plains covered with salt and toxic chemicals – the results of weapons testing, industrial projects, and pesticides and fertilizer runoff – which are picked up and carried away by the wind as toxic dust and spread to the surrounding area.

The land around the Aral Sea is heavily polluted, and the people living in the area are suffering from a lack of fresh water and health problems, including high rates of certain forms of cancer and lung diseases. Respiratory illnesses, including tuberculosis (most of which is drug resistant) and cancer, digestive disorders, anaemia, and infectious diseases are common ailments in the region. Liver, kidney, and eye problems can also be attributed to the toxic dust storms. Health concerns associated with the region are causes of an unusually high fatality rate amongst vulnerable parts of the population. The child mortality rate is 75 in every 1,000 newborns and maternity death is 12 in every 1,000 women.

The Aral Sea fishing industry, which employed some 40,000 and reportedly produced one-sixth of the Soviet Union’s entire fish catch, has been devastated, and former fishing towns along the original shores have become ship graveyards. The town of Moynaq in Uzbekistan had a thriving harbor and fishing industry that employed about 30,000 people; now it lies miles from the shore. The only significant fishing company left in the area has its fish shipped from the Baltic Sea, thousands of kilometres away. The overall cost of the damage to the region has been estimated to be £800 million.

Many different solutions to the problems have been suggested over the years including: improving the quality of irrigation canals; installing desalination plants; charging farmers to use the water from the rivers; using alternative cotton species that require less water; using fewer chemicals on the cotton; cultivating crops other than cotton; installing dams to fill the Aral Sea; redirecting water from the Volga, Ob and Irtysh Rivers to restore the Aral Sea to its former size in 20–30 years at a cost of US$30–50 billion; pumping sea water into the Aral Sea from the Caspian Sea via a pipeline, and diluting it with fresh water from local catchment areas.

In January 1994, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan signed an agreement to pledge 1% of their budgets to help the sea recover. In March 2000, UNESCO presented their “Water-related vision for the Aral Sea basin for the year 2025” at the second World Water Forum in the Hague. This document was criticized for setting unrealistic goals and for giving insufficient attention to the interests of the area immediately around the former lakesite, implicitly giving up on the Aral Sea and the people living on the Uzbek side of the lake. Much was done to restore the North Aral Sea. In October 2003, the Kazakh government announced a plan to build Dike Kokaral, the dam separating the two halves of the Aral Sea. The construction of this dam was completed in August 2005. In 2006, some recovery of sea level was recorded, sooner than expected: “The dam has caused the small Aral’s sea level to rise swiftly to 38 m, from a low of less than 30 m, with 42 m considered the level of viability.”

Economically significant stocks of fish returned, and observers who had written off the North Aral Sea as an environmental disaster were surprised by unexpected reports that, in 2006, its returning waters were already partly reviving the fishing industry and producing catches for export as far as the Ukraine. The restoration gave rise to long-absent rain clouds and possible microclimate changes, bringing tentative hope to an agricultural sector swallowed by a regional dustbowl, and some expansion of the sea. The North Aral Sea's surface increased from 2,550 square kilometres in 2003 to 3,300 square kilometres in 2008. The depth increased from 30 metres in 2003 to 42 metres in 2008. Now a second dam is being built with the construction started in 2009 to the Northern Aral. In 2005 the Uzbek government and an international consortium consisting of state-run Uzbekneftegaz, LUKoil Overseas, Petronas, Korea National Oil Corporation, and China National Petroleum Corporation signed an agreement to explore and develop oil and gas fields in the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea is largely unknown, but it holds a lot of promise in terms of finding oil and gas.

1. 
   UNEP/GRID-Arendal [Electronic resource]. – Mode of access: http://enrin.grida.no/.– Date of access: 21.02.2015.
   
1. 
   United Nations University [Electronic resource]. – Mode of access: http://archive.unu.edu/. – Date of access: 21.02.2015.
   

В статье раскрывается проблема уменьшения уровня воды в Аральском море. Автор дает характеристику экологических, биологических, почвенных и климатических изменений, связанных с усыханием Аральского моря и образованием на его месте пустыни Аралкум, анализирует причины и экологические последствия, а также способы решения проблемы.