ISSN 0025-6544, Mechanics of Solids, 2011, Vol. 46, No. 6, pp. 811–813. c© Allerton Press, Inc., 2011.Original Russian Text c© R.V. Goldstein, 2011, published in Izvestiya Akademii Nauk. Mekhanika Tverdogo Tela, 2011, No. 6, pp. 3–5.

On the Occasion of V. N. Kukudzhanov’s Eightieth Birthday

DOI: 10.3103/S002565441106001X

On October 4, 2011, Vladimir Nikolaevich Kukudzhanov, Doctor of Sciences in physics and math-ematics, Professor, and an Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, celebrated his 80th birthday.Vladimir Nikolaevich is a Foreign Member of the International Academy of the Republic of Armeniaand a Principal Researcher in the Laboratory of Modeling in Solid Mechanics of the A. Yu. IshlinskyInstitute for Problems in Mechanics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Professor Kukudzhanov has made a significant contribution to the development of many fields of solidmechanics such as dynamics of inelastic media, theory of nonlinear waves, theory of constitutive equa-tions, continuum thermodynamics, numerical simulation of problems of solid mechanics, theory of finiteelements, mesomechanics of fracture of elastoplastic materials. He is the author of more than 250 sci-entific papers including eight monographs and teaching manuals (see http://ipmnet.ru/∼kukudz).

Professor Kukudzhanov has obtained fundamental results in the field of nonstationary processes insolid bodies under the action of intensive thermomechanical and electrodynamic loads at high rates ofloading and finite elastoplastic deformations with material damage and fracture taken into account. Hehas investigated the laws of nonlinear wave propagation in elastoplastic and elastoviscoplastic mediawith defects and material microstructure, microstress relaxation, and the nonlocal character of plasticflows taken into account.

An extensive series of papers by V. N. Kukudzhanov has been devoted to the development ofnumerical and numerical-analytic methods of continuum mechanics. In particular, in several papers,he developed an asymptotic method for solving initial-boundary value problems for singularly perturbedsystems of hyperbolic equations and used this method to study the problems on the structure ofshock waves and localization strips under quasistatic and dynamic loading and to investigate ill-posed statements of initial-boundary value problems for softening materials. He developed the spatial

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characteristics methods providing accuracy up to the first and second order, numerical methods forsolving stiff hyperbolic systems of equations, several variants of the finite-element method in which thesingularities are separated and the asymptotic properties of solutions are taken into account, a methodof direct numerical simulation of applied problems of fracture in which structure defects are taken intoaccount. Moreover, a long series of papers deals with the development of the method of splitting ofelastoplastic problems with complicated plasticity conditions. On the basis of this method, he proposedan effective numerical-analytical method for integrating constitutive equations, which permits one todecrease the computation time significantly.

Along with fundamental research, V. N. Kukudzhanov has actively worked in application areas. Themethods of numerical simulation of elastoplastic bodies under large deformations on arbitrarily movingadapting meshes and the particle methods, developed by him, were used to model the process of jetformation in cumulative projectiles in problems of piercing through multilayer barriers and problems ofthe formation of bodies of a given shape. The developed packages of applied programs were implementedin specialized research institutes and design departments. In 1990, the Council of Ministers of the USSRawarded V. N. Kukudzhanov a prize for his achievements in mechanics.

Under V. N. Kukudzhanov’s scientific supervision, his colleagues and partners have investigatedthe influence of electromagnetic and thermal fields on the plastic properties of materials by theoreticaland experimental methods, suggested a new model of thermoelectroplasticity and developed, on itsbasis, new methods of treatment of hard-to-deform conducting materials in pulse electromagnetic fields,allowing to improve the plastic properties of materials. In cooperation with aircraft industry companies,the electroplastic effect has been developed and introduced in the technological processes of treatmentof materials made of hard-to-deform alloys and composites.

Professor Kukudzhanov consulted applied research into the development of methods for calculatinglarge telescope mirrors, optimal design of aircraft, and the development of methods for mathematicalmodeling of technological processes of metal forming.

In the recent years, V. N. Kukudzhanov has been actively working in the field of fracture mesome-chanics of elastoplastic materials. Based on the synthesis of the concepts of defect micromechanics andphenomenological theory of damage accumulation, he proposed a new model of dynamic deformation,damage, and fracture of elastoplastic materials and applied it to studying the process of plastic strainlocalization in separation strips and adiabatic shear in the prefracture state. He has also developedmethods for numerical simulation of fracture processes in elastoplastic bodies and structures underquasistatic and dynamic loading.

Professor Kukudzhanov’s work is widely known in Russia and abroad. He has published a large num-ber of papers in international journals, his latest monograph “Computational Continuum Mechanics” isnow being translated into English by the De Gruyter publishing house for the book series “MathematicalPhysics.” V. N. Kukudzhanov has many times been invited to lecture at leading international scientificcenters and universities.

Professor Kukudzhanov devotes much time and energy to the education of young scientists in thefield of mechanics. For nearly 40 years he has been Professor of the Chair of Continuum Mechanics andthe Chair of Applied Mechanics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University)and nearly 20 years, Professor of the Chair of Physics at MATI, the Russian State University of AviationTechnology, Moscow, where he organized and delivered lecture courses in various fields of mechanics,numerical simulation, and numerical methods of continuum mechanics. The scientific school createdby V. N. Kukudzhanov fruitfully works in many fields of science and technology. Twenty-one of hispupils received their Ph.D. degrees and seven pupils defended their D.Sc. theses under his scientificsupervision. For several years, V. N. Kukudzhanov served as a member of the Expert Council of theHigher Attestation Commission (VAK) of the Russian Federation (in mathematics and mechanics) anda member of a number of Scientific Councils in mechanics and computational mathematics.

Professor Kukudzhanov carries out extensive scientific-organizational work both in the RussianAcademy of Sciences and internationally. He is a member of the National Committee for Theoreticaland Applied Mechanics of Russia, and Vice-Chairman of the Scientific Council of Solid Mechanics. Hewas a member of the General Council of the International Association for Computational Mechanics(IACM) in 1990–2004 and a member of the Executive Council of the European Mechanics Society(EUROMECH) in 1995–1999.

Professor Kukudzhanov actively participates in the organization of numerous scientific congresses,conferences, and symposia in the Russian Federation and abroad. He is a member of the editorial boards

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of the Russian journals Izvestiya RAN. Mekhanika Tverdogo Tela (Mechanics of Solids), ProblemyProchnosti i Plastichnosti (Problems of Material Strength and Plasticity), and Vychislitel’nayaMekhanika Sploshnykh Sred (Computational Continuum Mechanics), and the international journalMultidiscipline Modeling in Materials and Structures. He also was a member of the editorial boardsof the international journals Impact Engineering and Archives of Mechanics.

The editorial board and the editorial staff of the journal Izvestiya RAN. Mekhanika Tverdogo Telaas well as his colleagues and pupils cordially congratulate Vladimir Nikolaevich on his 80th Birthdayand are wishing him strong health and many new creative achievements.

V. N. KUKUDZHANOV’S MONOGRAPHS AND TEACHING MANUALS1. V. N. Kukudzhanov, Propagation of Elastoplastic Waves in a Rod with the Strain Rate Influence Taken

into Account (VTs AN SSSR, Moscow, 1967) [in Russian].2. V. N. Kukudzhanov, Numerical Solutions of Non-One-Dimensional Problems of Stress Wave Propaga-

tion in Solids, in Reports in Applied Mathematics (VTs AN SSSR, Moscow, 1976), No. 6 [in Russian].3. V. N. Kukudzhanov, One-Dimensional Problems of Stress Wave Propagation in Rods, in Reports in

Applied Mathematics (VTs AN SSSR, Moscow, 1977), No. 7 [in Russian].4. V. N. Kukudzhanov, Numerical Methods for Solving Nonlinear Problems of Solid Mechanics, Teaching

manual, State Committee of Science and Higher School (MFTI, Moscow, 1990) [in Russian].5. V. N. Kukudzhanov, Difference Methods for Solving Problems of Mechanics of Deformable Media,

Teaching manual, Ministry of Science and Higher School of the Russian Federation (MFTI, Moscow, 1992)[in Russian].

6. V. N. Kukudzhanov, Numerical Methods in Continuum Mechanics, Course of Lectures, Teaching manual(Tsiolkovskii MATI–RGTU, Moscow, 2006) [in Russian].

7. V. N. Kukudzhanov, Computer Simulation of Deformation, Damage, and Fracture of Nonelastic Mate-rials and Structures, Teaching manual (MFTI, Moscow, 2008) [in Russian].

8. V. N. Kukudzhanov, Computational Continuum Mechanics (Izdat. Fiz.-Mat. Liter., Moscow, 2008) [in Rus-sian].

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