Prof. HU Shaowei (left) and Prof. HU Ya’an (right) attend the meeting

On the morning of May 27, 2017, the meeting for celebrating the National Science and Technology Researchers’ Day and granting the National Innovation-First Award was held in Beijing. NHRI Prof. HU Shaowei and Prof. HU Ya’an attended the meeting and won the honor. A total of 8 experts from the national water resources and hydropower sectors won the Award.

Prof. HU Shaowei, graduated from Northwest University, USA in 2003, has acted as director of NHRI Department of Materials and Structural Engineering till now. He has been engaged in applied basic research of engineering structures over a long term, and presided over more than 30 research projects at national and provincial/ministerial levels and more than 100 technical consulting projects of major engineering with more than 10 achievements reaching to the international leading level after appraisal. He has set up a complete set of theoretical system to safeguard the structural safety, including concrete damage and fracture theory, combined force analytic theory of composite structures, whole life span performance diagnosis technology of complex concrete structures, which has been successfully applied in over 100 domestic and foreign major concrete projects, such as the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, Water Diversion Project from E’erqisi River to Urumqi, Pingling Bridge in Changzhou, Liyang Pumped Storage Power Station, wharfs along the Suez Canal in Egypt, etc. From 2013 to 2016, he was granted with a series of talent titles at national or provincial level, and won 1 Second Prize of the National Technological Invention Award in 2016, 3 First Prizes of Dayu Water Science and Technology Progress Award and 4 second prizes of science and technology progress award at ministerial/provincial levels. He published 10 monographs and nearly 300 papers with 30 included by SCI and 100 included by EI. He has been supervised more than 50 students for doctor and master degrees.

Prof. HU Ya’an has acted as deputy director of NHRI Dept. of Hydraulic Engineering since 2007, made a batch of original achievements in the fields of ship lock, ship lift and energy dissipation of high-dam flood discharge, and solved key engineering technical difficulties of more than 40 national large-scaled water transport and hydropower projects, such as the Three-Gorge Project, Jinghong Hydropower Station, Baihetan Hydropower Station, Jinping Hydropower Station, etc. He has created a new theory of valve cavitation with passive protection as core, and formed the packaged technology of graded anti-cavitation for high-head ship lock valves, solving the difficult problems of cavitation of high-head ship lock valves. He has set up the new standard of draft control for ships’ passing through ship locks and new technology of ships’ waiting at the first chamber of the ship locks of the Three-Gorge Project, remarkably improving the navigation capacity of the Project. In regard of traditional ship lifts, he has proposed the criteria of critical instability water depth for ship chambers, new technology of safety balance weights and adaptive ship types of the ship lift of the Three-Gorge Project, which has promoted the technological progress of ship lifts in China. He has developed a new type of ship lift driven by hydraulic power instead of traditional motors, constructed a fundamental theoretical system of hydraulic driven ship lifts, and solved a series of technical difficulties of hydraulic synchronization, ship chamber stability and precise control after 15 years research, which were successfully applied in the Jinghong Project. This type of ship lift was the first in the world and original in China, with great significance in the field of high-head navigation in the world. He has also created a new technology of integral physical modelling of large-scaled hydraulic engineering, solving the difficulty of energy dissipation for flood discharge of high dams of hydropower stations, such as the Jinping Project with the highest arch dam in the world and the Baihetan Project, the world largest hydropower station under construction. He successively won 3 Second Prizes of the National Science and Technology Award, 26 provincial or ministerial science and technology awards, among which 12 were Grand Prizes or First Prizes. He was granted with 32 national invention patents, and another 25 invention patents are waiting for approval. As editor-in-chief, he was or is responsible for 9 industrial standards, and compiled 4 books. He was also granted with several other awards and honorable talent titles by the country.

The National Innovation-First Award is another important science and technology award approved the country, following the State Natural Science Award, State Technological Innovation Award, National Science and Technology Progress Award. It is designed to honor outstanding researchers and excellent research teams who possess influences both at home and abroad and have made great contributions to scientific research, technological development, major equipment and engineering research, research achievements transformation, science popularization and social services. The Award is appraised and elected every 3 years.