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Vladimir Grigorievich Shukhov (), ( - February 2 1939) was a prominent Russian engineer renowned for his pioneering works on new methods of analysis for civil engineering that led to breakthroughs in industrial design of oil reservoirs, pipelines, boilers, ships and barges. Shukhov is particularly reputed for his original designs of hyperboloid towers such as the Shabolovka Tower.

Biography

Vladimir Shukhov was born in a town of Graivoron, Belgorod uezd, Kursk gubernia into a petty noble family. His father Grigory Ivanovich Shukhov was a minor government official, promoted for his efforts in the Crimean War. For a while Grigory served as Mayor of Graivoron and later as an administrator in Warsaw.

In 1864 Vladimir entered Saint Petersburg gymnasium from which he graduated with distinction in 1871. During his high school years he showed mathematical talents, once demonstrating to his classmates and teacher an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem. The teacher praised his skills but he failed the grade for violating the textbook's guidelines.

After graduating from the gymnasium, Shukhov entered the Imperial Moscow Technical School, in which his teachers included Pafnuty Chebyshev, Aleksey Letnikov, and Nikolay Zhukovsky. In 1876 Shukhov graduated from the school with distinction and a Gold Medal. Chebyshev proposed him a job as a lecturer in mathematics at the Imperial Moscow Technical School, but Shukhov decided to seek a job in the industry instead.

Thereupon Shukhov went to Philadelphia, to work on the Russian pavilion at the World's Fair and to study the inner workings of the American industry. During his stay in the US Shukhov came to know a Russian-American entrepreneur, Alexander Veniaminovich Bari (Александр Вениаминович Бари) who also worked on the organization of the Fair.

In 1877 Shukhov returned to Russia and joined the drafting office of the Warsaw-Vienna railroad. Within several months, Shukhov's frustration with standard and routine engineering made him abandon the office and join a military-medical academy.

After the October Revolution Shukhov decided to stay in the Soviet Union despite having received alluring job offers from around the world. Many signal Soviet engineering projects of the 1920s were associated with his name. In 1919 he framed his slogan: We should work independently from politics. The buildings, boilers, beams would be needed and so would we. In the later 1930s during the Great Purge he retired from engineering work but was not arrested or persecuted.

Shukov died on February 2 1939 in Moscow and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery. His many honours included the Lenin Prize (1929) and the title of Hero of Labour (1928).

Works

Vladimir Shukhov is often referred as the Russian Edison for the sheer quantity and quality of his pioneering works. He was one of the first to develop practical calculations of stresses and deformations of beams, shells and membranes on elastic foundation. These theoretical results allowed him to design the first Russian oil tanker, new types of oil tanker barges, and a new type of oil reservoirs. The same principle of the shell on an elastic foundation allowed to theoretically calculate the optimal diameter, wall thickness and fluid speed for the fluid pipelines. Shukhov's projects were instrumental in constructing:

  • An oil pipeline, the first in the world, between Balkhany and Cherny Gorod near Baku (12 km, 1878 complete, used by the Branobel). By 1883 the total length of Shukhov-designed, Bari-built oil pipelines in Baku exceeded 94 km, transporting 30 thousands barrels of oil per day. In 1894 a similar pipeline network was built in Grozny. In 1904 they built the first Trans-Caucasian kerosene pipeline between Baku and Batum (800km long).
  • A superior design for water-mains. Shukhov designed (and Bari built) complete water-supply systems for the cities of Tambov, Kharkov, Voronezh and many others. In that age of infectious diseases his water-supply systems literally saved thousands of lives.
  • A superior design for oil-tanker barges (less than half of the metal previously required), 84 150-meters long barges were built (mostly for the Volga river) as well as the first Russian sea-worthy oil tanker ship. His approach to the ship strength analysis (using the model of a shell on an elastic foundation) was absolutely novel for that time.

Shukhov made important contributions to the chemical industry:

  • He designed an original oil pump. Shukhov's pumps revolutionized Baku's oil industry allowing to increase its oil output.
  • He designed one of the first furnaces that used the residual oil: before his works the residual oil was considered a waste and was discarded, due to his works it became recognized as an important technical product known as a fuel oil.

Shukhov also left a lasting legacy to the Constructivist architecture of early Soviet Russia. As a leading specialist of metallic structures (hyperboloid structures), he may be compared with Gustave Eiffel. Shukhov's innovative and exquisite constructions still grace many towns across the former Russian Empire:

  • Eight truss-roofed (thin-shell structures) exhibition pavilions for the Nizhny Novgorod Fair of 1896, covering the area of 27,000 km². and featuring an unorthodox water-tower that served as a model for more than 30 similar structures built in Imperial Russia, and thousands around the world now.
  • About 200 original towers (hyperboloid towers) all over the world, the most famous being the 160-meter-high Shukhov Tower in Moscow (1922).
  • Spacious elongated shop galleries, bridged with innovative metal-and-glass vaults, notably the Upper Trade Rows on Red Square (1889-94), Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (1898-1912) and Petrovka Passage (1903-06).
  • Enormous metal arch vaulting for the Municipal Railway Park (1908) and the Kievskiy Railway Station in Moscow (1912-17).
  • The colossal hall of the Central Post Office, Moscow (1911-13).
  • Truss-supported metal framework for the Central Universal Store in Moscow (1906-08).
  • Several Constructivist projects, designed in collaboration with Konstantin Melnikov, notably the Bakhmetyev Car Park (1926-28).
  • About 500 bridges across the Volga, Yenisey, Dnieper, and other rivers.
  • Stabilization of the leaning Ulugh Beg Minaret in Samarkand (Shukhov's last engineering work).

See also

References

Russian engineers | Structural engineers | Russian architects | Russian avant-garde | Civil engineers | Russian scientists | Russian polymaths | Russian inventors | Tensile architecture | Bridge engineers | 1853 births | 1939 deaths

Vladimir Shújov | Vladimir Shookhov | Wladimir Grigorjewitsch Schuchow | Vladimir Choukhov | Шухов, Владимир Григорьевич | Vladimir Sjoechov | Vladimír Grigorjevič Šuchov

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Vladimir Shukhov".

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