by Marina POPOVA, journalist

In the middle of 2010 Academician Alexander Leontyev (Russia) and Academician Boris Paton (Ukraine) became prize winners of the International Award in power engineering "Global Energy". It was established in November 2002 by the fund of the same name and supported by leading national companies Gazprom, Surgutneftegaz and the Federal Grid Company Unified Energy System. It became the first personal award in world fundamental and applied science, which is given for outstanding achievements in power engineering.

The prize list was opened in 2003 by Russian physicist Academician Gennady Mesyats, the well-known American scientist, engineer and professor of the Illinois University Nick Holonyak and his countryman Ian Smith, a senior researcher at the Titan Pulse Sciences Division. In the course of intervening seven years, 22 scientists from 9 countries (Great Britain, Germany, Iceland, Canada, Russia, USA, France, Ukraine and Japan) were awarded this prize totaling in money terms 30 mln rubles (winners divide it into equal

parts). This year the Award Committee of 34 well-known scientists from our country and from abroad studied 64 works, almost one and a half times more than in the past.

According to experts, the problem of power resources becomes increasingly important from decade to decade. As for forecasts, by 2050 their world deficit will reach 30 percent, therefore rational use and new technologies of extraction power sources have become a matter of priority for economic development of different countries. The research work of the scientists awarded prizes this year makes a practical contribution to perfection of these processes. Thus, Boris Paton has obtained recognition "for solution of scientific and technological problems in the pipeline transport of energy carriers and power-plant engineering" and Alexander Leontyev "for achievements in intensification of thermal exchange processes in electric power plants".

Paton can be called without exaggeration an outstanding personality not only of Russian or Ukrainian but also world science. After graduation from the Kiev Polytechnical Institute in 1941 as electrical engineer, he was employed by a defense enterprise, namely, the elec-trotechnical laboratory of Krasnoye Sormovo works in Gorky (today Nizhni Novgorod), and soon made several fundamental inventions. In particular, he brilliantly accomplished development of electric circuit of automatic welding heads. This simplified the design and, at the same time, improved reliability and operating convenience, which allowed to make new component parts in ordinary mechanical workshops. According to specialists, it was a turning point in disseminating highspeed welding at munitions factories of the country. By the end of the Great Patriotic War, due to Paton's talent of innovation, hundreds of kilometers of seams were welded on boards of combat vehicles. For this invention Paton received his first order, namely, Badge of Honor.

Paton is also the founder of the previously unknown scientific trend, i.e. automatic regulation of welding processes by acting on welding arc and seam parameters through a supply system. As a result, with his participation and under his guidance, an original welding method (electroslag welding) based on heat isolation in the process of current passing through liquid slag, thereby the edges of processed parts and a filler metal melt and a high temperature is maintained. Moreover, this novelty resulted in solving of the problem of production of unique high-pressure tanks for power engineering and chemical industry, large-sized assemblies for sea vessels and space vehicles, as well as hydrogenerators. Today 200,000 linear kilometers of powerful pipelines operate in Russia and Ukraine thanks to his invention. Ultimately, it is of vital importance in fuel supply to CIS countries, Europe and Asia, which ensures their power safety. It is no mere chance that 10 years after graduation from the institute, in 1951, Paton became corresponding member and then full member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and the USSR Academy of Sciences. He has approximately 1,000 patents for inventions and around 3,500 published works.

Today the outstanding researcher heads the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and is engaged in super-modern systems of management with various cybernetic instruments. He creates welding robots and is greatly interested in welding metallurgy, improvement of existing materials and creation of new ones.

Another winner of the international award "Global Energy"–Alexander Leontyev–is an indisputable authority in the sphere of heat and mass exchange, i.e. conversion of thermal power into work operations or electric

power. He was born in Leningrad in 1927 and studied at the Moscow Aviation Institute. From 1959 he headed the thermal gas dynamics laboratory at the Institute of Thermal Physics, the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Together with the well-known Russian thermal physicist Samson Kutateladze (Academician from 1979), he formulated relative laws of friction and heat exchange in turbulent boundary layers of liquid-gas systems. Later on he worked at the Institute of High Temperatures of the USSR Academy of Sciences and from 1975 at the Bauman State Technical University in Moscow, where he carried out a number of innovative studies in fundamental and applied thermal physics. In 1991, he was elected full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 1998, he invented the so-called Leontyev tube for thermal stratification of gas, which made him world-famous. At first sight the invention seems simple: pressurized gas is fed from a separating chamber into two coaxial pipes (one inside the other). In the inside it is accelerated to supersonic speed by a shaped nozzle, but in the outside circular opening the speed remains subsonic. Between these flows moving with different speeds, there takes place a productive overcurrent of heat, which leads to an effect of temperature stratification. This invention can be used in power engineering (for example, on gas-compressor plants for fireless heating of natural fuel prior to its transportation), refrigerating units for gas liquefaction and in units for its low-temperature separation.

At present Alexander Leontyev, professor of the chair "Gas Turbine and Unconventional Power Plants", has over 200 publications and monographs, and also 9 textbooks on thermal mass exchange. His works in this field considered classical have a high citation index, but, above all, they are widely used in design and construction of power equipment operating in the conditions of high temperatures.

At present he focuses his attention on use of numerical methods of analysis of turbulent processes, evident in heat exchange. These works are unique: it is not accidental that in 2008 Leontyev became a member of the American Engineering Academy, one of the eight Russian scientists.

The award ceremony of two prize winners took place in June of 2010 as before in St. Petersburg at the Lenexpo exhibition hall within the framework of the International Economic Forum (St. Petersburg). As usual, the awards were presented by President of the Russian Federation. When introducing Boris Paton, President Medvedev noted: "His open and active stand help preserve common scientific space in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Today, as head of the International Association of Academies of Sciences of the CIS countries, he contributes much time to joint research projects. It is very important for all of us, as science has no boundaries, and our scientific schools originate from the only source."

As to Alexander Leontyev, the President stressed not only a revolutionary nature of his certain works, but also his educational activities: for many years he has been teaching at one of the best technical institutions of the country, where he trained a great number of first-class specialists.