In 2018 I attended an ASME conference where I met Igor and his son Andrii. They were the first and only Ukranians I have ever met. Both were very likeable and smart. When Russia attacked Ukraine last month I thought of them and their safety.
At a conference dinner one night I was sitting next to Igor and asked him a question I often do when I meet engineers from other countries. His answer was "Hydro Udar". What is that?
I found out that night that "Hydro Udar" is what Ukranian engineers call waterhammer. The literal translation to English, according to Igor, means "hydraulic impact" (I wrote it down at the time so am not going purely on memory here). In that the Ukranian language has many similarities to Russian, he told me that Russian engineers use the same word as Ukranians for waterhammer.
My interest in this topic of language and waterhammer extends back farther. I wrote a blog in 2012 called World Languages and Waterhammer. Even in the English language we cannot settle on an agreed term. Next week we will hold the second live meeting of the new Hydraulic Institute Waterhammer Committee I first discussed back in October. One thing we have discussed is waterhammer terminology. Is "waterhammer" the best name for the committee? What English terms are synonymous and what mean something different? What terms would we recognize in this committee?
So far we have decided to recognize that these terms all mean the same thing: waterhammer, water hammer, hydraulic transient and surge.
For someone who did not have a passport at 30 years of age, I have been extremely fortunate to have travelled to over 30 countries since then. I have never been to Ukraine and cannot imagine the suffering of their people during this time. I did send an email to Igor to see if he and Andrii were safe. I did hear back from him.
May peace return to Ukraine soon.