方玉建

I joined Voith Hydro Shanghai on 30^th of May in 2005 after graduation. My first 2 years were spent in the marketing department providing the technical sales support on the hydraulc aspect.

The first 2 years was very busy for learning technical translation (Chinese to English or English to Chinese) and learning and practicing CALII: the hydraulic layout software. In August I attended the 1^st technical exchange meeting for Xiluodu, Xiangjiaba and the underground powerhouse of Three Gorges due to I was involved quite a lot for the documents preparation of that meeting. My deep impression about that trip is that I didn’t have a good luggage bag; the bag was damaged when I just got off the airplane, and I had to buy a new one in Yichang. Another most impressive memory of that meeting are I met three top experts from the headquarter Mr. Klein (hydraulic expert), and Mr. Buchmaier (mechanical expert) and Mr. Hildinger (generator expert). The funniest thing was we asked what they would like to order on the first evening they arrived at the hotel, they ordered several plates of peanuts and they were practicing picking up peanuts with the chopsticks. They must be very hungry on that evening due to the long international flights from Germany and Brazile and their so poor skills at the chopsticks. Also I remember I first met the Chinese expert Mr. Huang Yuanfang on this meeting, he had some free discussion with us about the speed selection for Xiluodu project during or after the lunch, 136.4rpm and 125rpm. The common understanding about that is the lower speed 125rpm is more in favor of a new round of hydraulic optimization based on Xiaowan model, and will lead to a more reliable technical solution in terms of pressure fluctuation, erosion and other reliability issue such as dynamic load or phenomena. I could not judge since Xiluodu HPP has been completely put into operation after I left the company, but the runner crack found on the Xiaowan blade later reflected some dynamic connected issue, and the very smooth operation of Xiluodu unit from Voith Hydro could show that Voith Hydro made a big step in terms of further integration of dynamic design into the hydraulic development and optimization process. So something you can never decide but until you know more and deeper or have a real lesson learned. Experiences are so important in the real engineering world.

After this meeting among the daily project work, I attended another technical exchange meeting in Chengdu, this time the group was much smaller compared to the last one. But I had a task to be the interpreter for Mr. Lars Meier. There was a few times each with several seconds I was at a loss to find the right words and asked Mr. Lars to repeat his words several times because I was too nerves. But this started my interpreter experience.

In March or April of 2006, I got another chance to attend a 2-days seminar on hydraulic application in Heidenheim, I stayed in Heidenheim for another three weeks to prepare the bid for Longkou and the technical exchange meeting for Nuozhadu project. It was my first abroad trip, and I was caught by a very bad cold soon after the seminar. But this time, another team was in Heidenheim for the management training, the so-called Blue Book team. I had a lunch with them after I felt a little better and I ordered the tomato soup, which was so different (so thicker) from that in China. The reason I mention this is because one member in this team was later my boss, and I took his blue book mobilizer in 2011. I thought this could be the first connection started between me and him, and later with the Blue Book. Here is a photo for a nice memory of this lunch(How young I was at that time!).

After I went back to Shanghai, I was very busy for the daily project workfor the bidding preparation of several projects. Also a milestone project Jinping II started the bidding preparation during that time. When the final call for bid came, I went to Heidenheim the 2^nd time before Christmas in 2006 for the bidding documents preparation and some project coordination like modelshipment. Also this was taken like to enhance the project communication between Shanghai and Heidenheim. It was a lonely trip for the first 2 months, I was the only Chinese in their building in Heidenheim , but it was good because I had no choice to speak Chinese except on the telephone, but could only speak English if I want to open my mouth. My mobile phone was open but without connects to China. I remembered the boss of hydraulic application department Mr. Klein came to me asked why my telephone had so high cost. I could not answer, because there were really some private calls between me and my family. I appreciate his very careful and kind arrangement to let each colleague in his team to have one dinner with me once a week. And he was the last to have dinner with me before I went back to China. We had the Chinese food, and talked a lot. After the dinner I could only gave him a small name-card box made of leather as a gift, this is the only gift left. On the way back, I thought this gift was too light and he might throw it away.

There are also another two funny stories for this stay in Heidenheim.

The first is I was arranged to be seated in a modernization team’s office, and there was an elder engineer named Armin. At that time I was not used to the English name. I brought two ties with the company logo Voith Siemens, one for the hydraulic designer of Jinping II: Armin (Otto), and another for the CAL II software supporter. And when I got to know the person sitting close to me was Armin (Schuh), I was very happy and gave the gift to him, he felt very happy but surprised, but he also was very honest and told me there was another Armin and felt the gift might not for him. I did not have much money to buy the gift at that time, but two ties, two silk scarfs for the ladies, a wallet for Mr. Lars and one name-card box I took as the customer gift from the company. I bought a few small gifts (a plastic scissor and a cup with Chinese paint) for the kids of Mr. Lars Meier. I gave the tie to a wrong Armin, but in order to keep the face I could not take it back. So I did not give any gift to another Armin whom I seldom saw actually.

The second experience impressed me much was the trip to Berlin before I went back to Shanghai. I planned a connection trip to Berlin from Munich airport before I went back. I dropped my big luggage at the Munich airport, and took a flight to Berlin. I booked a bed in a youth hotel, and walked around the Berlin for all the sightseeing. It was a long and tiresome walk; I admired my courage to walk around the Venice the time before and this time around Berlin. Later I never had such experience except a 3-hours walk along the West Lake in Hangzhou on a very early morning during the design liaison meeting for Jinping II a few years later. These long walk experiences were quite brave and of blindness because I used my foot to measure Venice, Berlin and the West Lake in term of its size, which also reflects some hidden personality of my attitude towards life.

For this period, I should mention 3 topics related to my technical interest appeared, but they did not draw much of my attention at that time.

¨ The 1^st is the seminar in June of 2006 on dynamic design with an introduction about Rotor-Stator-Interaction (RSI) presented by Mr. Ulrich Seidel. I remember we had practiced the combination of n, m and k in the formula n*Zg+k=m*Zr. But I didn’t have any background knowledge on that before, also the English was quite poor, understanding the presentation was quite difficult for me.

¨ The 2^nd is, RSI was once a big topic and under great discussion on a video conference for the Jinping II, and the conclusion of that meeting was some mitigation like a research program on that issue must be foreseen during the contract execution stage. I just attended the meeting, and was just a listener nothing else. But all these are truly happened later because there was a new development even after the contract awarded and two model acceptance tests during the contract execution stage (Voith past both acceptance successfully). Try to avoid any potentially foreseen risk shows Voith’s responsibility for a significant project through a practical example. The cost was quite higher, and from this practical story, I learned there was something more important than the efforts in terms of money or cost, like to be perfect, responsibility. Efforts are spent in order to show responsibility and to be perfect.

¨ The 3^rd is the first time I touched the SIMSEN, which was used to do the transient simulation for Jinping II by a colleague from Dr. Koutnik’s group. At that time there was still a bug inside the program Mr. Klein mentioned on the design review meeting. And it was from that time I built my connection with Dr. Koutnik, and his knowledge and personal style had a strong influence on me later. If counting from that time point, I had a 7-years contact with him. Thus I appreciate his kindness and the knowledge very much.

How shall I describe these first 2 years as a freshman in Voith hydro Shanghai? I could only use a word “brave” with the encouragement from my former boss Mr. Tang. And he saw my talent at that time (he told me this during the talk when I told him I want to leave the company in 2013). I don’t know where I got such “brave”, but several 1^st time experiences below are true and embedded in my mind:

¨ The 1^st international telephone call with Mr. Jansen(who was also a shy boy at that time) after struggling for long time in mind, I remember it was after 4 or 5 months of work in the company;

¨ The 1^st business trip by taking an air plane to Yichang and the 1^st time on such a big scale technical exchange meeting for 3 huge projects; the 1^st time to meet so many biggest experts; the 1^st time to visit the Three Gorgers project and its powerhouse;

¨ The 1^st time to be the interpreter for Mr. Lars on the technical exchange meeting for Guandi project in Chengdu;

¨ The 1^st international business trip to Germany to attend the seminar;

¨ The 1^st time to attend a contract negotiation for Longkou project, although we lost the contract but I had deep impression about the frequent and busy walks between the meeting room and the hotel room for the international phone calls on a very hot summer;

¨ My 1^st contract achieved after one-and-half-year struggling (1^st fruit after long exercises); the contract negotiation together with Mr. Jansen was still impressive. Two young and shy engineers are not really good combination for the negotiation. Later I thought a lot and understood much better about how to explain and negotiate the 1.2 times cavitation margin based on the incipient cavitation coefficient from the pressure fluctuation point of view. The customer raised this topic as their concern, but I and my colleague Mr. Jansen both could not understand the technical behind of this customer concern very well, and the negotiation on this topic was a fail.

¨ My 1^st learning course for the bidding preparation for a modernization project Danjiangkou, through which I built a good communication with Richard Danielson from Voith Hydro York. I had quite frequent contacts with him after that and a very good impression of him. It was in recent years, I knew Danjiangkou rehab is so important a project for the middle line of water diversion project from the south to the north, anyhow Voith lost it is not because of technical disadvantage but a little higher price.

¨ The 1^st time I was involved in such an important huge project Jinping II, which continues a lot during my work in later years in the company, I am very proud of this experience in Voith Hydro.

¨ The 1^st time I met Dr. Koutnik and touched SIMSEN, with whom I began a long contact later and transient simulation with SIMSEN became one of my main works in the company.

¨ The 1^st time in the hydraulic laboratory in Beijing for the re-check test of Jinping II, I stayed there only for the 2^nd week. The main issue was the leakage through an adaptor for the transducer in spiral case to measure the pressure fluctuation. I noticed the problem through watching the data on the computer screen, and we went to the test rig and found there was leakage for that sensor adaptor, but it takes around one or two days to dissemble and assemble the model for several times in order to solve this problem. Unfortunately this problem was still not solved at last, which Voith Hydro took as a lesson learned from this to bring some back-up adaptor by themselves for Xiluodu re-check test. Also what I shall never forgot is I got a call and knew my grandma passed away on the last day before I left Beijing, this was a regret in my heart because I thought of going back to hometown to see her several times but never do it until she left me. And I wrote this regret in one of my diary which was included in the book: My Dreams for the New Rural villages. This small event had a long influence on me, like the decision on my left from Voith Hydro.

¨ ……

There were too many 1^st time. There was heavy snow on an early morning in the winter of 2006, I took a photo of my foot mark in the snow, I thought of I was the 1^st person from my village to step onto the Europe land or Heidenheim an der Brenz(Heideheim an der Brenz is the city name, if translated into Chinese it will be “布伦茨河边的海登海姆”, it because there are several Heidenheim so I meanioned it more specifically) in Germany. From that, you can guess the meaning of my “brave” in such a way. Later and now I felt such my “brave” brought a strong competition between me and my elder colleague Mr. Jin (he was a technical guide when I joined the company), but such my fearless hurted him and lead to our early separation. This is my fault and personality weakness.

On an early morning in later of 2006 or beginning of 2007 when we arrived in the office, all got an unexpected e-Mail containing the salary information of every colleague. I opened the e-Mail, and had a look but soon was informed to delete this e-Mail immediately. I did accordingly without any hesitate. There was some unbalanced feeling inside me, but my thought was still rational, because I thought one day I would earn similar or even more than Mr. Jin if I could achieve project success along the time. What I must do was settling down my mind and tried to make these successes happen. This first exposure of salary did not have a big impact on my mindset.

To be honest, I am a very ordinary person, grown in a rural village and got an education about turbine by chance, I could confess I am still a very ordinary person but with some special brave like fearless of failure (I don’t know where it comes), which started a special experience in an international company like Voith Hydro. Also frankly speaking, my confidence is still very low during these 1^st two years except the “brave” I reflected above.

Sometimes, I thought of I was in a bad fate always struggling before I wentto Chengdu for the master degree study. My hard work could not be recognized bythe manager and boss. The dream with my 1st girlfriend (could be called a girl friend since we attractedeach other after the 1^st meet and talked to each otherin a mood I enjoyed) was broken soon after a few meets. But after I met my wife, my fate was changed into a good and smooth pace and I enjoyed this lucky very much. I kept a letter from my wife when I was in Heidenheim during thewinter of 2006. My tutor prof. Lai, my wife, Voith Hydro, my previous boss Mr. Tang, my brave, brought all these lucky to me. I appreciate all of themvery much. And I really felt sorry for hurting Mr. Jin due to my youth and fearless with this my reflection. About my previous boss Mr. Tang, I should say something more. He has a mixed personality and is quite a good leader from my observation. Firstly he is like a free style player as you never know what he will talk next. He may be very angry sometimes, like throwing the door closed. But he was also showing personal caring to the very details, talking to you about how life was going on, and what problem I had on living? And to technical question, he is very direct, some his view point show his long-term experience in this area although he is not a technical expert. I appreciate him very much because it was him giving me the chance to join Voith Hydro, and also it was him saw my potential or strength of my personality. And we have trust on each other even after I left his department to the proposal engineering. I thought much of my “brave” were coming from him, a little like a free style player or always trying to catch the critical point without following a formulated way. But anyway I have to leave his department after a 2-years start because the situation was changed that the load for bid preparation were increased significantly, and the proposal engineering department was already established before I finished the Jinping II contract negotiation.