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VLADIMIR VASIL'EVICH STRUMINSKY

(1914 - 1998)

Vladimir Vasil'evich Struminsky was born on 29 (16) April 1914 in Orenburg. Having finished 7 classes at school, he worked as a turner at factories of Kazan' and Moscow. After finishing workers' high school he entered the physical department of the Moscow State University. In 1938, on recommendation of his scientific guide Academician M.A. Leontovich, V.V. Struminsky became a post-graduate student at the Institute of Physics at the Moscow State University. In May 1941 he suc-cessfully defended the Ph.D.Theses and was assigned to TsAGI (Zhukovsky) where he started the aerodynamic research of the finite-span wings. In the first years of WWII, the studies of V.V. Struminsky were ex-tremely important for the development of domestic aviation technology. During this period he obtained exact solutions of three-dimensional boundary layer equations for liquid and gas flows around yawing wings with infinitely large span and swept wings with large aspect ratio. The theoretical conclusions were fully confirmed by experiments. The first fighters with swept wings were built in 1947 in Design Bureaus of S.A. Lavochkin, A.I. Mikoyan, and A.S. Yakovlev. The theory of the flow around swept and yawing wings was used by V.V. Struminsky in defending the Doctor's Theses in 1947. Together with other TsAGI scien-tists, V.V. Struminsky was awarded the State Prize for the development and manufacturing of new wings for high-speed planes.

In early 50s V.V. Struminsky was appointed the Deputy Director of TsAGI on aerodynamics and the Head of the main aerodynamic labora-tory. For the researches on the development of new aerodynamic shapes for various-purpose aircraft, V.V. Struminsky and his colleagues were awarded the Lenin Prize in 1961.

Subsequent studies of V.V. Struminsky included the improvement of aerodynamic parameters of the aircraft by decreasing the drag and friction of the vehicle, in particular, by artificial control of the boundary layer, and also the creation of aircraft with supersonic and hypersonic speeds.

His scientific services were recognized as he was elected a Corre-sponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1958 and an Academician in 1966. Soon he was proposed to head the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics.

As soon as V.V. Struminsky became the Director of ITAM SB RAS, the main activities of the Institute became the theoretical and experimen-tal researches in the field of aerodynamics. In 1968, the USSR Govern-ment commissioned ITAM SB RAS with solving promising aerodynamic problems. Very soon a powerful aerodynamic complex was created at the Institute: a series of small wind tunnels and gas dynamic facilities. This allowed for conducting unique experiments, in particular, for testing the first models of the winged spacecraft "Spiral" developed at the A.I. Mikoyan Design Bureau.

Studying a new field required new people appropriately trained. V.V. Struminsky reconstructed the work of the Gas Dynamic Department of the Novosibirsk State University and supplemented the schedule with special courses on viscous gas dynamics, rarefied gas aerodynamics, and gas dynamics. As a result, a lot of young specialists were trained for the Institute.

Under V.V. Struminsky's guidance, ITAM SB RAS started to pretend to be a leading institution in the field of aerodynamic studies not only in Siberia, but in the entire country. Along with solving fundamental prob-lems of mechanics, ITAM SB RAS, in close cooperation with the leading industrial aviation-space institutes and design bureaus, was involved in research for creating new samples of domestic aircraft.

After returning to Moscow in 1971, V.V. Struminsky worked at the Institute of Mechanics Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences, then he headed the Department of Mechanics of Nonuniform Media of the USSR Academy of Sciences. This Department established a close cor-roboration with industry, it became the center and a link between the fun-damental and applied science. The scientists of the Department fulfilled a number of important works on the problems of two-phase media and ki-netic theory of gases.

In middle 80s, V.V. Struminsky was anxious about the barriers exist-ing between the academic and industrial science, which hinder the im-plementation of new technologies to the large-scale production. He also spoke much about the current problems in the development of Russian science: monopoly of some scientific schools, imitation of scientific ac-tivity instead of intense scientific research, etc. He did not know it by hearsay, but encountered during many years of his scientific biography.

There is no doubt that five Siberian years became one of the brightest pages both in the life of V.V. Struminsky himself and in the activity of the Institute headed by him. Scientific career of many ITAM workers began under the guidance of this outstanding person. He delivered lec-tures at the Novosibirsk State University, and the first scientific papers of many young scientists were written under the guidance of V.V. Strumin-sky.

In June 1997, when ITAM SB RAS celebrated its 40-th anniversary, V.V. Struminsky came to the feast despite his old age and indisposition. He was touched by the hearty reception, and when he came back to Mos-cow he sent a telegram: "Thanks to my students and followers who achieved great success and made me be proud of them". This was his farewell to people dear to him, his farewell to Siberia.