And make red caviar:

I am continuing my story and soon will tell about my trip to Sakhalin Island where red caviar recipe was learned.

Stressmen 20

KuAI was developing in the end of the 70s. Campus was sprawling in the area of Moskoskoe Shosse near Botanical Garden. The Aviation Structures Chair got a new hangar built in the campus territory. The Chair boss, Valery Komarov, decided to reconstruct hangar into university building with auditoriums, labs and research offices. All professors, docents and researchers of the Chair were converted into simple construction labor for more than one year.

This time coincided with introduction of the Soviet’s clones of IBM/360 (so called ES computers) into most of Design Bureaus, which were our clients and PRASAK users. The Design Bureaus were forced to replace BESM-4 and M-220 for ES type computers equipped with IBM OS/360. The need in new FEA software operational in OS/360 became urgent and the decision was made to start creation of new system written in PL/I language for OS/360. The name for new software was invented too. We baptized it as RIPAK (Raschet I Proektirovanit Aviatsionnykh Konstruktsiy what means Analysis and Design of Aviation Structures).

We had no ES computer with OS/360 in KuAI in 1979, but there were even two of them (two ES-1022) in Polytechnic Institute. My friend worked there in position of the IT Department Head what helped us to start working. At least one of the ES-1022 was underloaded and available for us at night time. I made unofficial agreement with my friend and he provided us computer time for 10 rubles per night. This is a price of two bottles of Siberian Vodka, popular brand in the Soviet Union.

PL/1 in OS/360 was very different in comparison with DOS. It was powerful tool. Allocate and Free operators allowed us to control memory usage during program run. Pointers gave a chance to work with strings and arrays very flexible way. Data structures made data presentation clear and effective. Index Sequential Access Method became very popular. So many new degrees of freedoms for programmer and we tried to use all of them.

Nights were our computer time and we were construction workers during daytime. All reconstruction was done with our hands. For example, Misha Vilchek and I installed very steep nonstandard stairs to Aviation Structures Laboratory. Sergey Rychkov made welding job. All of us assembled walls and laid parquet.

As most of Soviet workers sometime we fulfill duties of People’s squad for protection of public order. There were big crowds on Volga piers, landing places for ferries, during summer weekends. People would like to leave city and spend leisure time on the other side on the Volga River, where meadows and good beaches are situated. I remember well as ones they sent us to keep order on the landing stage on Ulyanovsky Spusk where famous Dno (Bottom) takes place. The situation there was difficult from the early morning: the mob was rioting. Ghenka Makeev, very good negotiator, made agreement that our team will keep order on the other side, land stage in Proran, where we finally sailed taking two canisters of beer with us. Proran was quiet in the morning, no need in People’s squad at all. Therefore we went to pine tree grove not far from the beach on the border of village cemetery. We spend the whole day there, drinking beer, discussing our deeds, playing cards, swimming and sunbathing.

The boat is mooring at its usual fall-winter wharf:

I am back to my blog and plan to continue “Stressmen” soon. We survived Winter Olympics Game. You can find a proof of that in my Russian blog Other posts there will confirm that I was active enough during summer and early fall time too.

And green circles:

Today torch relay reportages are penetrating inside everybody through ears and eyes. To have an interval in this fever I had my lunch and refreshment exercises on Sturgeon Banks not far from Richmond Oval. It was very interesting to watch the great blue heron hunt in the meadow. The mouse was a prey. I didn’t make a picture of the moment when it was caught. Mouse tried to escape from the beak and heron changed position. On the photo you see heron soaks the mouse before swallow it:

I do not support modern commercialization, politicization and pseudo-patriotization of the Olympic movement. The so called “Sport of Highest Achievements” or professional sport mutilates young and healthy people morally and physically. And, as it happened today, it kills some of them. I had a look at the picture of the accident place. It seems that they connected straight line and circle in the trajectory turn. If this is true, there is a break in the second derivative of the trajectory function what may lead to the normal to the trajectory surface forces on the luge when a sportsman is in this turn.

I do not like the Olympic mob in my home environment, and I am not protester too. Therefore I have a serious intention to get at least a masochist pleasure from the game. How to do this? Do not know yet. But my first attempt will be done tonight. Watch me in the O Zone on Lulu Island.

Crocuses are here too:

And great blue heron is inspecting neighborhood for awakened frogs:

The winter is not far from here, in the mountains, where Olympics competition will take place soon.

Sailboats have no wind and use their motors:

The water is like a mirror:

Bold Eagles are watching harbor:

And I continue my story, Stressmen 19

If you have an analysis tool in your hands and can easily change parameters of your model the temptation to play with these parameters is very strong. The element I created for composite panel simulation was debugged and tested. After this I started development of optimization algorithm. Several parameters were ideal to be design variables: number of unidirectional plies, fiber orientation in every ply, ply thickness, fiber-resin ratio. Structural mass is a goal function for aviation structures. Panel displacements and composite material failures are constraints. The optimization problem is formulated as structural mass minimization subject to constraints.

The first optimization algorithm I chose was based on Rastrigin’s random search method. The idea of self-educated search with memory vector was good for unconditional optimization. Therefore I transformed goal function into sum of structural mass and penalty functions. Penalty functions were equal to zero if constraints are not violated and they were gaining weight very fast when method led outside the constrained area. I wrote the program, which was a shell that combined input of the initial data, analysis, optimization and output and started to check it. It worked properly and even found plausible results. However I didn’t like the approach with penalty functions because the better idea of optimality criteria approach developed by Khot and Venkayya captured me.

Optimization attracted my attention to composite failure criteria. All of them starting with simplest Hill formula and finishing with something like Tsai-Wu one do not predict failure mode: is it resin or fiber crashing was not indicated explicitly. Maximum stress and maximum strain criteria are written for fiber and resin separately and predict the mode. But max criteria are linear and are not accurate enough in many loading cases.

If you do not know the reason of failure the optimization process can lead to a wrong result. I proved it with several bright examples. After this I decided to make my own failure criterion, quadratic and separated for resin and fibers. It was done. I tested new criterion and proved its workability. Then I solved optimization problems for several test know in the structural optimization community. Some of my results contradicted to practical approaches and this was good. Composite material, its directional property, anisotropy, really demand new approach to understanding and design practice. All these exercises created a strong foundation for the future Ph. D. thesis.

Sasha Danilin, being a leader in DOS IBM and PL/I programming, decided to create his own finite element analysis software. But after some architectural design it became obvious that additional programmers have to be involved. Kolya Orlov was invited to write solver engine: to realize one of the algebraic equation system solution algorithm. I started writing of the input language which described finite element model naturally. Sasha created software shell and programs assembly. After several months of work we really had a simple package and even baptized it ZADOR by the initials of our last names. ZADOR means ardor in Russian.

Kolya Orlov was not very enthusiastic in his programming. Kolya’s realization of the wave front algorithm of equation system solution was ineffective and doesn’t work properly. We used my very simple program of matrix inversion and have ability to analyze only very simple models. Then Kolya left KuAI and moved to Tolgiatti University for associate professor position. ZADOR project was stopped but it was a real good training and preparation for the future work in finite element method development.

I turn right from Westminster Hwy and dire to Rona by Alderbridge. The huge bright shining head arises on the left. There were nothing like this a week ago in this place. My gaze is riveted to the outlines of the head, which resembles me something painfully familiar, but certainly does not fit to my island. What the heck is this? My eyes see the face of the world communist sachem which I know from my childhood, who still is lying as alive on the main square in Russia. And I do not believe to my eyes. Am I hallucinating? I emergently brake the car and go out looking at this miracle:

My attention is drawing to the figure on the top of his bald head. The figure is very similar to the Little Buddha from the monastery that is not far from here:

Passing people have a sluggish reaction to this impossible assemble. And this is good, because no one of them saw Lenin before. But I impressed to the deepest parts of my sole went to Rona for garland.

And there are other picturesque views of similar subjecton Lulu Island:

But I continue my story. This time it’s about boats too. Stressmen 18

4. Transition period

At the end of 70s PRASAK was installed in 16 design bureaus throughout the USSR. Our software operated in the M-20 command computers belonged to the second generation. The hardware of these computers was based on transistors. Soviet government made a decision to introduce the third generation based on microchips and IBM/360 general software. It was planned to replace all old machines in several years. The first two computers of the third generation were installed in the KuAI building at Molodogvardeyskaya Street. They were the M-4030 and the ES-1020. DOS ES was operational system that copied DOS IBM/360. Such programming languages like RPG, COBOL, FORTRAN, PL/I and Assembler were available. Sasha Danilin, one of the NIG-1 researcher close to Chair Chief made a choice and PL/I became a tool for our software development for the next 20 years. I started my exercises in PL/I language programming with Sasha’s help and supervision.

Reading English language technical literature was one of my duties as a researcher. We were looking for good ideas for software development. Soviet Institute of Information issued references practically of all significant publications in the western world. I went throughout all of these abstracts and ordered copies of books and papers that looked interesting for me. John Robinson’s “Integrated Theory of Finite Element Methods” was one of them. His semimonocoque membrane quadrilateral element attracted my attention. I decided to modify it for fiber reinforced composite material simulation.

In May 1978 Experimental Plant of Sport Boats from Jurmala addressed to our lab with the request to help them in modern Olympic rowing boat design. The carbon fibers were strategic material in that time. Olympic sport committee addressed government for permission to use carbon epoxy and somewhere there they decided that our lab has experts who can really support such kind of design and do not waste expensive material.

On early morning of May 11 the Il-18 plane on the flight from Samara to Riga brought me to Latvia’s capital. I spent couple of hours in comfortable black leather chair in the waiting hall before public transportation stated working and I had a chance to go to the office. I liked this business trip from the very beginning. Victor Michelson, the Chief Engineer of the Sport Experimental Plant, provided me with all information that I could use in my analysis. He took care on my accommodation and feeding too. And of course he showed me Latvia from inside. It was unusually hot spring in Baltic that year. Every morning after short meeting in the office, answering my question and providing me with some more details related to boat structure and loads, we had an aperitif, small glass of good vermouth, took the motorboat and hit the Lielupe River. We visited many interesting places by river. Victor was very proud of Latvian culture and lifestyle. Food and beer are important items for better understanding of the other culture, therefore we stopped in every pub on the river and tasted different cultural samples.

After return home with thin folder of drawings and other technical papers I created finite element model of the four oars sweep rowing boat with a helmsman. My analysis showed that there is possibility to make the structure more rigid providing short cuts for load balancing via carbon epoxy reinforcements installed inside the hull on the skin and connecting thole with feet beam. It was done in PRASAK. The report issued proved that composite material usage as advised will make boat more effective for rowing due to avoiding parasitic deformations that exist in the initial structure. Soviet government allowed Experimental Sport Plant to use carbon fibers and the boat was built ant took part in Moscow Olympic Games 1980 with excellent results.

But what was more important than the Olympic boat is new stimulus to develop optimization tool for composite structure optimization. Robinson’s formulas for semimonocoque element was programmed in PL/I, debugged and tested. Simple program that allowed analyzing quadrilateral panel, its constraints and loads was written too. Then I modified element for composite material descriptions in two ways: macro model, where every unidirectional layer is described as homogeneous orthotropic plate; and micro mode, where fiber and resin parameters are used for material description.

As a result of my exercises I got a possibility to simulate composite panel, constrain it, load it, get displacements and stresses in every layer. Everything was ready to start optimization.

Russian Snow Geese are following the metal bird:

The winter sun is going to horizon gently tinting harbor by yellowish colors:

Sunset is beautiful:

There is no continuation of my story today, but I published the first three chapters of the Stressmen as pages.

The city looks fresh:

And even festive:

I continue my story. Stressmen 17

I woke up early next morning. The fishing rod near the door attracted my attention. I decided to check what kind of fish we have here. There were two big rusty hooks on the line. I caught two big gadflies that were sitting on the window and used them as bait. The laboratory hut was sitting on the small island on the side of Volga-Caspian channel. The shallow delta was covered by cane, but small lagoon with clear water was situated near the hut. I went there and throw bait into water. The gadflies were sinking when something big swallowed them. I pull the rod. The line was heavy. Something like a big silver hat with red ribbon was rotating in the water being hooked. It took me some time to pull this stuff out. It was not a hat but two huge rudds. I never saw such big rudds before. After taking them off the hooks I started to think, where to take other baits. Maybe there are more flies on the window? Before going back to the hut I throw empty hooks into water. To my surprise the effect was the same. Fish swallowed empty hooks while they were in motion. As a result two more fish were behind me on the ground. And I continued. In five minutes I had a pile of rudds and breams on the grass when Levin hailed me from the door:

“And what are you going to do with these fish?”

“Cook it. Why not?”

“Let’s I show you something” – Sasha went to the gang way and pull out the first fishpond. Three big carps were inside. Then he pulled out next. Beautiful stellate sturgeon tried to jump out of it.

“We have enough and do not need fine-mesh fish”.

This is the beginning of my life in delta. The diver tasks were simple. I had to collect samples of benthos which was investigated by Luba laboratory analyst. And of course I was a help for all other duties like baby fish accepting from aquarium boat and placing them in the yards for following research, mature sturgeon catching and checking if they have laser beam marks on the forehead what means that they were artificially hatched, and so on including hunting, cooking, fishing, fish and fish eggs processing into caviar and its preserving.

Lotus field was not far from our camp. Ducks, loons, gees, cormorants, pelicans and swan nests were around.

There was no electricity in the camp, what means no fridge too. One day we found that several loafs of bread we had in stock molted from inside. You cut the bread and it is blue on the shear. Fish and caviar were our only food for several day after which Levin told me:

“Go to the channel and trade caviar for bread”

“Yes, Sir!” – was my answer.

Luba gave me one liter glass container filled with high quality pressed caviar and big piece of smoked sturgeon. I switched on Veterok engine of our Dnepr boat and headed upstream.

It was not a simple task to find living soul in South delta of Volga river. But I was lucky and after several miles in winding channels I saw an aft of big rusty barge. It was not abandoned, but ridded at anchor surrounded by high reeds. Several sailors were on the deck watching my arrival with curiosity:

“What are you doing here?” – they asked me.

“I live in delta” – I answered and continued: “Do you have bread? I would like to exchange”. And I showed caviar and fish to them.

“Sorry, lad, we ourselves are in trouble. Our tugboat broke the screw, left us here and went to Makhachkala for repair. We do not know when they’ll be back”.

They started to ask me what particular I am doing here when big woman, who was a cook, appeared on the deck:

“Will you change this for crumbs?”

“Yes, no doubts”.

“One bucket will be enough?”

“I think so”.

She disappeared for a second and was back with big bucket filled to the top by crumbs. I took the bucket, emptied it into boat box and returned it back to the barge with caviar and sturgeon.

After short leave-talking I switched engine on and was off. Of course I took one crumb and bite it. Only then I paid attention that the crumbs were dried pieces of bread which cook collected from the unfinished plates. My crumb had a specific tracks of teeth bite and rice garnish. But this didn’t stop me from eating.

There were many other interesting events and meetings during my working in delta. And during this vacation I never remembered my structural analysis problems. Some new skills attained in delta are still very helpful, for example, fish eggs processing. I still can prepare caviar in three styles: granular caviar, pressed caviar and royal caviar.

And the rain forest is soaking:

Last boat is heading home with the hold full of sockeye:

And my story is continued with the episode where another boat is involved. Stressmen 16

Some of summers I spent in expeditions. For example, in 1978 Kostya Cedric arranged my work as a diver for the Laboratory of Sturgeon Efficiency in the Central Institute of Sturgeon Fishery in Astrakhan.

Early morning one day in July the Yak-40 took off Kurumych runway. The Grushinsky festival field looked as a dirty patch on the green Volga’s meadows. After couple of hours we landed in Astrakhan with its cholera. We were very careful and didn’t eat in the cafes or restaurants. On the first day in the river port we took our Kazanka motorboat, bought big sac of vobla and eat only this dried fish in day time, avoiding public places and public transportation using our boat for reaching different places in this city with many water branches and canals inside. In the evening we had hot homemade food, like soup, supplemented by glass of vodka. After several days of my contract negotiations and signing it in the Central Institute of Sturgeon Fishery I got my paper for field work in the Laboratory of Surgeon Efficiency. The laboratory was analyzing efficiency of seven artificial hatcheries in Astrakhan. The goal was to define which technology of feeding is better and what age and size the baby fishes have to be when they are freed for wild life.

The “field” was on the last Volga delta island in the Caspian Sea. Initially Kostya planned to put me on the aquarium boat that cruised between hatcheries and Caspian Sea transporting baby fiches there and providing field camp with samples. Unfortunately aquarium trip was scheduled only in the end of month. Therefore Kostya using all his links in Astrakhan managed to arrange my trip aboard Academician Lomonosov boat that belonged to another research institute, Caspian Scientific Institute of Fishery. They were going to South Caspian for analysis of sprat catching efficiency.

10 a.m. of the 9th of July Kostya and I were staying on the bridge of the Academician Lomonosov vessel. The captain, head of the expedition, navigator and radioman had a morning drink there discussing last events. Kostya reacted to this very positively and proposed our bottle of vodka to their table. It was accepted and the Russian mariner’s breakfast was continued. I described the reason of my presence aboard and the place of my destination. The beacon #95 is the place where boat has to stop for my landing to the lab camp. Kostya made simple sketch of the camp area and pinned this pies of paper on the window frame. This saved me in 12 hours.

Lomonosov managed to push off only after 11 a.m. when the crew refilled their vodka stock in liquor store which was opened at 11 a.m. and not a minute earlier. The sailing by Volga-Caspian channel was blind drunk. The boat moored and several villages on the way where crew had a quick trip to local liquor store for additional vodka supply. By my fortune there were several trainee sailors whom vodka was not allowed. One of them was steersman and I explained him why I am here and where I would like to escape from this vessel.

After sun set captain was on the bridge looking at the water ahead. The beacon #84 happened to attract his attention.

“Stop engine!” – he commanded and changed engine order telegraph to STOP position – “Dinghy overboard!” – and then, addressing to me – “Slavka, I know this place!” – fingering to open water around the boat.

Knowing well how stubborn the captain is and difficulties to take off his command I decided to play by his rules:

“Steersman! Report the number of the beacon we pass!” – I demanded by very loud command voice.

“Number eighty four, Sir!” – young sailor supported my game.

“What is the number of the beacon of my destination?”

“Number ninety five, Sir!”

“Full speed!” – I commanded and steersman changed telegraph for FULL SPEED position.

Captain left the bridge and I didn’t see him again.

It was dark when we approached beacon #95. There were only two sober guys on the boat: steersman and I. And I started to act. I put telegraph into VERY SLOW and switching on loud-hailer started to outcry:

“Levin! Dingy to the boat! Levin! Dingy to the boat!”

And I used search light, beaming to the camp shack that was seen on the right.

I was so lucky that Sasha Levin, the head of the lab, was in place, jumped to the dinghy, switched motor and managed to catch the boat.

Being under overboard, looked at the deck he asked without big surprise:

“All are drunk, of course”.

“Yes, take my backpack, please” – I replied and jumped to the dinghy.

It took us close to one hour to be back to the camp.