Social Factors Affecting The Advancement Of Engineering Technology

Sanmenxia hydraulic turbine project was independently accomplished by ourcountry in1960s, and during which the welding Technical Regulation of Largemechanical parts was made in China first time. In this paper, Sanmenxia hydraulicturbine project is the object of study and raw information was collected by applyinginterview and inquiring literatures to describe the research process. This studyanalyzed the reasons why China had the technological progress in a short period oftime with the way of combining engineering-sociology and technologicalsociologies., and this article also explores the social factors that effected thetechnical progress.After descripting the Sanmenxia turbine welding program formulation,implementation process，and analysis of the reasons for the success of the projectas well，we get the following conclusion：First，China mobilize resources to complete the welding of the Sanmenxiaturbine through the strong social mobilization. The national human material andfinancial resource were been collected through the high degree of socialmobilization. The collection of resources provides solid basic guarantee for theadvancement of engineering technology.Secondly，the technical participants have strong sense of social identity. Itwas Great Famine during the research of the turbine welding technology，theengineering and technical participants do not care about material rewards, with thegreatest enthusiasm to complete the Sanmenxia hydraulic turbine project in theshort term. During this period, the motivation that supported technical personnel tocarry out the technical study was the belief that they should contribute to ourcountry. The belief arises from recognition of the regime of the technicalparticipants.Finally, the technical participants have superior engineering capability.In thecase of national mobilization, government ultimately chose HIT WeldingDepartment to do the project, and the talent which HIT trained played a key role inthe Sanmenxia hydraulic turbine project. This article analyzed the teaching model ofHIT, and then discussed how university education mode affected the application oftechnology.