Hidrológiai Közlöny 1974 (54. évfolyam)

3-4. szám - Könyvismertetés

Hidrológiai Közlöny 1974. 3—4. sz. 139 wake of development in industry and agriculture. The treatment of wastewaters polluted by oils, phenoles and pesticides presents increasing difficulties to the designers of the treatment technology. The high labour demand of. sewer construction in the past must be eliminated by the introduction of new, highly mechanized pipe laying technologies. Considerable changes have occurred also in the domains of irrigation and drainage. Individual small farms have been replaced by large cooperative- and state agricultural enterprises, and the former small irrigated plots by large, complex sections with units covering 1—2 thousand hectares. Intensive irrigation calls for increased drainage development in the irrigated areas. Migration of labour from agriculture makes the introduction of low-labour irrigation methods imperative. Industrialized, mechanical cultivation implies large plots and a corresponding drainage system. In agriculture large-scale farming, concentrated livestock breading have become pr edominant, emphasizing the need for the disposal of the effluents by wastewater irrigation. The importance of flood control has also increased. The developments in agriculture and industry have made the properties protected more valuable. The reliability of preventive flood control must be improved. Interest has turned also in Hungary towards river regulation and canalization. The completion of the Danube—Main

—Rhine Canal is expected to encourage river navigation on the Hungarian Danube as well. The growing gap between the demand and supply of power has prompted the development of hydroelectric power potentials which were formerly considered economically unfeasible. The demand for the utilization of thermal waters has presented new problems. Besides bathing and balneological, medical purposes, thermal waters are required also for raising agricultural production. These changes define positively the role of designing enterprises in the development of water management. It is the designer, who in the knowledge of the water management objective, defines the engineering solution, selects from among the several potential alternatives the one which is technically and economically the soundest, elaborates the details of the solution, decides on the technology and costs of realization, and as consultant to the investor observes, supervises and assists the realization of the project, moreover conducts observations on the operation of the completed projects in order to gain experience for further such projects. The responsibilities of the designers — as will be perceived from the foregoing — have become successively more complex during the past decades. Let us consider in this context the designing work in connection with one of the major projects handled, namely the Second Barrage on the Tisza River and the irrigation development related thereto. ' The project supplies water for irrigating round 320 thousand hectares. The five, 24 m long spans of the weir are controlled by hydraulically operated sector gates passing a discharge over 5000 cu.m'sec. Energy is produced by 4 tubular turbine sets. Water is distributed over two 190 long main canals, 800 km long section principals and round 100 high-head irrigation pumping stations. Water distribution in the entire system is controlled from an automated center. A wide range of engineering knowledge had to be applied in designing the project. Starting with the high-level surveying work, hydrology, hydrogeology, soil mechanics, structural analysis, along with automation, control- and communication engineering were among the 40 special branches involved in the work. Reliance had to be made in the designing on hydraulic, structural model tests and photoelastic studies. As an other extreme situation the special tasks needed in designing a minor village water works were studied. Although the work was a routine task, eight different professions had to cooperate. Between these two extremes innumerable alternatives occur, depending on the complexity of the problem. Other specialists include mathematicians and those on steel corrosion problems. This brief review was presented in order to demonstrate that in the organization of a designing enterprise widely ramified activities must be co-ordinated. Continuous consultation is needed to design the project according to uniform principles and to ensure its trouble-free operation. In the practice evolved at VIZITERV specialized designing work of greater volume is performed by special divisions, while for the majority of civil engineering jobs complex designing groups are considered desirable to ensure the required coordination in elaborating the details for individual major projects. In designing large complex structures a general staff must be composed, each member representing one part structure of the project and assuming responsibility for coordination within the part structure. This group of specialists must be headed by an engineer with the necessary professional background and organizing ability to guide and coordinate the work of designing, who assumes personal responsibility for the work. The establishment of complex designing groups does not guarantee, however, that each group includes high level professionals from each branch, so that experts must also be available who are most familiar with a specialized branch within the enterprise and who supervise — in the specialized branches affected — the work of such professionals, giving expert advice and guidance in their professional problems. In this way their high level experience can be utilized to advantage in the work of each complex designing group. The tasks of these high-level specialists includes also the introduction of new methods and solutions in their particular fields, contribution to the development of new ideas, the uniform guidance of specialists working in various complex groups and taking care that a new solution developed at a particular group should be adopted wherever sound and economical, for all projects handled at the enterprise. It is not intended here to go into the detail problems associated with the organizational pattern of designing enterprises. It should only be indicated that in this way it becomes possible at large concentrated design offices to realize in each job the result of high level professional knowledge. Minor designing agencies are not in the position to employ highly qualified professionals familiar with all aspects of the problem, so that the designing of major projects, where solutions beyond the routine work are necessary, can be designed by such large, concentrated organizations only, where the high standard of engineering background is available. In many instances even such organizations feel the necessity of consulting a research institute, or another specialized designing enterprise. The specialist guiding the process of complex designing must employ tools enabling him to continuously follow the progress of work, to perform the coordination needed in the various phases and to take any event affecting the designing process into consideration at the appropriate time, adjusting and modifying the designs accordingly. The most effective tools for this purpose is the network diagram and the critical path method, since designing resembles any other production process with the fundamental difference, however, that the individual unit operations of production consists exclusively of intellectual, creative work. The difference is a substantial one, since the guidance of creative intellectual work and the organization thereof is superior in complexity to any other production organization, calls for greater tact and consideration of the personality of the designers. It is to be seen from the foregoing that the creative work of designing depends principally on the training and personality of the personnel engaged in it. These professionals must be familiar with their own special branches, they must be devoted to their work and must be continuously updated on advances in their fields. No details will be mentioned here of psychological problems, e.g. of the difficulties of finding for a highly trained designer the sphere of activity fiting