C HRONIC LE S

70th BIRTHDAY OF VLADIMIR IVANOVICH ARAVIN

May 28, 1970 marks the 70th bir thday of Professor Vladimir Ivanovich Aravin, Doctor of Technical Sciences and Director of the B. E. Vedeneev VNIIG (All-Union Scientif ic-Research Institute of Hydrogeology) Seepage Re- search Laboratory.

V. I. Aravin left the M. I. Kalinin Leningrad Polytechnicat In- sti tute (Faculty of Engineering Construction) in 1929 to take up science teaching in the f ield of hydraulics and hydromechanics and the theory and ca icu ta t ion of seepage in hydraulic engineering installations, which was to continue for several years.

V. I. Aravin started his pract ical work as a scient i f ic assistant engaged in the study of hydraulics and hydromechanics, as a member of an hydraulic engineering team led by Academic ian N. N. Pavtov- skiL In 1937, he was awarded theScience Degree of Candidate of Technica l Sciences, in recognition of his scient i f ic work as a whole. without defending a thesis. In June 1941. he defended a doctoral thesis, and in 1943 he was designated Professor. From 1942 until the present, V. I. Aravin has successfully directed the N. N. Pavtovskii Seepage Research Laboratory.

V. I. Aravin started his teaching career in 1930 at the leningrad Potytechnicat Institute, in the Faculties of Hydraulics and Theoret ical Mechanics,and he has continued right up to the present, becoming the head of the Facuky of Theoret ical Mechanics and Hydraulics at

the Leningrad Institute of Agriculture in 1947. An exce l len t lecturer, he enjoys outstanding authority among the students.

At the start of the Great Patriotic War, V. I. Aravin worked on mil i tary construction and in March 1942 was evacuated to Chirchik in the Tashkent region, where he worked on the scientif ic just i f icat ion of hydroelectr ic sta- t ion projects. He was awarded the Test imonial of the Supreme Soviet Uzbeck SSR for his part in the Farkhad hydro- e lec t r ic station project.

V. I. Aravin is a ta lented engineer and outstanding hydraulic engineering scientist of world renown. His works in the f ield of seepage calculat ions and exper imenta l research are well known both in the USSR and abroad. A num- ber of his works have been submitted to international congresses. He has published 65 scientif ic works in the field of hydraulics, hydraulic engineering, and hydraulic engineering and seepage theory, including the coauthorship of four monographs.

V. I. Aravin established the method of seepage invest igat ion in the presence of curvi l inear anisotropy of per- meab le soil. Under his leadership an investigation was carried out for the first t ime into three-d imensional seepage at the Verkhne-Svir hydroscheme, on a foundation of anisotropic rocks.

V. I. Aravin's works in the field of plane open channel seepage and seepage in one plane are of great scien-

t if ic importance. He has formulated and provided the theore t ica l basis for a procedure in resolving problems of s teady-s ta te and transient seepage in one plane. This procedure is widely employed by many investigators in the solution of complex problems encountered in the design, construction, and operation of la rge-scale hydroschemes. In particular, it has been used in seepage investigations, on shore abutments, and in regions of groundwater basins at the Kakhovka, Kremenchug, Dneprodzerzhinsk, Bratsk. Krasnoyarsk, Ust ' - I l im, and other hydroschemes.

In 1940, V. I. Aravin for the first t ime formulated a theory of model l ing for transient and s teady-s ta te axial symmet r ica l seepage, employing viscosity analogy. This method is employed by investigators in several countries

Translated from Gidrotekhnicheskoe Stroitel 's tvo, No. 5, pp. 56-57, May, 1970.

471

472 70th BIRTHDAY OF VLADIMIR IVANOVICH ARAVIN

throughout the world, and the slotted flume for resolving problems of axial symmetrical seepage has entered the foreign literature under the name of "the Aravin apparatus."

V. L Aravin is at present studying problems of the flexible seepage regime and associated problems in the de- termination of the variation in time of uplift on the base of a structure, together with the more precise determina- tion of the coefficient of piezoconductivity of a medium. Under his leadership in the Seepage Research Laboratory, in recent years, several seepage investigations have been carried out for hydroelectric stations in process of construc- tion, and in service, including the Kakhovka. the Gor'kii. the 22nd Party Congress Volga Station. Krasnoyarsk, Aswan, Nurek, Chitka, the V. I. Lenin Plyavinyas, Ingur, the Kislogub pumped storage station, and several large thermal power stations, including the Karaganda heat and electric power plant, the Shchekina, Churubai-Nura, and Karma- novo grid regional power station, and others.

V. t. Aravin has undertaken considerable work as the tong-term chairman of the Interdepartmental Coordina- ting Committee for Seepage Problems. Up to the present, five issues of the "Transactions of the Coordinating Con- ferences on Hydraulic Engineering" have been published with his direct participation.

For several yeats, V. I. Aravin has been the chairman of the hydraulics and hydromechanics section of the Scientific Council of VNIIG, and a member of the EdRorial Board of "Izvestiya VNIIG," and an editorial consultant of "Gidrotekhnicheskoe Stroitel'stvo."

In recognition of his longstanding and irreproachable service. V. I. Aravin had been awarded the "Order of the Red Banner of Labor" medals and badge "outstanding service to power and electrification USSR."

Hydraulic engineering personnel warmly congratulate V. I. Aravin on his 70th birthday, and wish him success and good health.