Soviet academician Dollezhal Nikolai Antonovich is a key figure in the USSR’s project to create an atomic bomb. In addition, he was the chief designer of RBMK and nuclear power reactors, which are still in operation today. The professor lived a life longer than a hundred years and devoted it all to science.
Biography
Nikolai Antonovich Dollezhal was born in the Ukrainian village of Omelnik on 10.27.1899. His father, Anton Ferdinandovich, a Czech by birth, was a Zemstvo railway engineer. In 1912, the family moved to Podolsk near Moscow, where my father had a new job. In this city in 1917, Nikolai graduated from college, after which he became a student at the Moscow State Technical University named after N. E. Bauman. He studied at the Faculty of Mechanics, where his father also received his education there.
Anton Ferdinandovich believed that you cannot become a real engineer unless you work with your hands and feel the metal, he instilled these beliefs in his son. Therefore, in parallel with his studies, the future academician Dollezhal began to work first at the depot, and then at the steam engine repair plant.
In 1923, the young man graduated from the university and received the specialty of mechanical engineer.
Work in the pre-war and war years
In the years 1925-1930. Nikolai Antonovich worked in design organizations. In 1929, he completed an internship in European countries: Czechoslovakia, Austria and Germany. Upon the return of Dollezhal, the organs of the OGPU of the USSR were arrested, accusing them of pests in the case of the Industrial Party. The investigation lasted a year and a half, and all this time the future academician was in prison. In January 1932, he was released without charge.
After the conclusion, Nikolai Antonovich Dollezhal worked as deputy chief engineer in the special design bureau of the technical department of the OGPU. In 1933, he was appointed Technical Director of Giproazotmash in Leningrad. A year later, he was transferred to Kharkov Himmashtrest as a deputy manager. In the fall of 1935, Nikolai Antonovich became the chief engineer of the Bolshevik plant in Kiev. In December 1938, he went to work at the Moscow Research Institute "VIGM".
In July 1941, the future academician Dollezhal was appointed chief engineer of Uralhimmash, which was being built in Sverdlovsk. In 1943, he became director and supervisor of the Scientific Research Institute of Chemical Engineering. It was not just a scientific institute, but a complex of research and design divisions with well-developed production and experimental facilities.
The creation of a nuclear reactor
In 1946, research institutes were involved in the Soviet atomic project. Nikolai Antonovich and many of his employees began to develop the first industrial nuclear reactors for the production of weapons-grade plutonium. A special unit was created inside the institute to carry out the work, tentatively called the Hydro Sector.
By that time, he was already 46 years old, and he had great knowledge in various technical fields: compressor engineering, heat power engineering, and the chemical industry. In February 1946, Nikolai Antonovich proposed a vertical diagram of the future reactor, and it was accepted for implementation.
The designed “unit A” was launched in June 1948. And in August 1949, the first atomic bomb from plutonium produced on it was successfully tested. After that, in 1951, the development, design and launch of the experimental “AI unit”, which was designed to produce tritium, followed. The resulting products allowed our country to be the first to show the power of a thermonuclear explosion. So began to forge the Soviet nuclear shield.
Nuclear power plant start
The ideas of Nikolai Antonovich, implemented in the first uranium-graphite apparatus, were the basis for the design and construction of future power channel reactors. Domestic nuclear energy began to develop in this direction from the beginning of the Obninsk NPP in 1954, the first nuclear power plant in the world, the heart of which was the channel “AM unit”.
The NPP was launched when Dollezhal already worked as the director of NII-8, an institute created in 1952 by the government to develop a nuclear power plant, which was to be used in the design and construction of the Union’s first nuclear submarine.
The creation of a nuclear submarine
Since the end of 1952, the staff of the scientific institute began intensive work on the design of nuclear power plants with a pressurized-water reactor. In the country, such an apparatus was created for the first time, so it was necessary to look for new solutions in many scientific and technical areas.
In March 1956, scientists at the stand physically launched the VM-A reactor, and two years later the device began to work on the ship. After sea trials, the submarine was put into trial operation, and from that time the first generation nuclear submarines began to be built in large numbers.
In the Soviet Union, the merits of the team led by Dollezhal were highly appreciated. In 1959, NII-8 was awarded the Order of Lenin. In 1962, Nikolai Antonovich became an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Designing New Reactors
Dollezhal’s ability to competently coordinate the work of designers and solve tasks was bearing fruit. After VM-A, the first V-5 block reactor was created - for its time the most powerful in the world. He allowed the first submarine with a titanium hull to develop a record speed of movement under water, which still remains unsurpassed.
Then, under the guidance of Academician Dollezhal, they designed the MBU-40, the first monoblock reactor installation. In 1980-1990 On its basis, they created the energy of one of the types of ships that are in operation to this day.
No less fruitful was the team of Nikolai Antonovich working in the "ground" nuclear energy.
In 1958, the dual-purpose EI-2 reactor designed at NII-8 was launched, producing weapons-grade plutonium and energy on an industrial scale. It became the basis of the first unit of the Siberian NPP.
Also in the institute in 1964 and 1967 they developed fundamentally new reactors for the Beloyarsk NPP named after I.V. Kurchatov, the first large nuclear power plant in Soviet energy. They implemented Dollezhal's long-standing idea of ​​nuclear superheating of steam, which significantly increased the thermal efficiency of power plants.
Creation of RBMK reactors
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union began to have difficulties with energy supply. In order to radically and quickly solve this problem, they began to build large nuclear power plants. Nikolai Antonovich Dollezhal led the construction of a series of RBMK reactors designed for power units with a capacity of 1 thousand MW.
In 1967, the installation project was released. At the end of 1973, the RBMK power unit began operating at the Leningrad NPP. In 1975-1985 Thirteen more such installations were built and commissioned. Together they generated almost half of the atomic electricity of the USSR. Then, scientists improved the design of RBMK, which allowed to increase the power of the apparatus by one and a half times. Such reactors were installed at two units of the Ignalina NPP, which became the most powerful in the world.
Security Issues and New Developments
Academician Dollezhal was confident in the design of the reactors under construction, but he was concerned about ensuring the reliability of nuclear power plants and environmental and economic problems. Since the mid-1970s, he often raised these topics in publications and speeches, talking about the need to raise the level of the technical culture of the installation and operation of nuclear technology. With regard to environmental safety, Nikolai Antonovich proposed the creation of nuclear power complexes where fast reactors would be used, including including fuel cycle processes.
Nuclear technology and science in the Soviet Union developed rapidly, which required a large-scale expansion of the experimental base. Based on this, since the late 1950s, Academician Dollezhal began to direct the strength of his research institute to create various research reactors. As a result, basin-wide s were created that are convenient in operation, as well as the RVD, MIR, SM-2, IBR-2, IVV-2, IVG-1 devices, unique in experimental capabilities and characteristics.
Teaching activities
Nikolai Antonovich wanted to train competent and qualified specialists for the construction of new equipment, so from the late 1920s he began to teach at universities. Engaged in such activities for almost sixty years, of which for almost a quarter century he headed the department of nuclear power plants at MVTU im. N.E. Bauman.
For forty years, an outstanding scientist led the development of various nuclear reactors, paved new paths in this scientific field, nurtured a spirit of creative activity and high responsibility for the work in his staff. For 34 years, Dollezhal worked as the director of the institute, which became one of the largest centers of nuclear technology and technology in the Russian Federation.
last years of life
In 1986, due to illness, the academician left administrative posts, but continued to be interested in the affairs of the research institute and to help his followers and students with advice and recommendations.
In the last years of his life, Nikolai Antonovich was fond of solving ancient mathematical and geometric problems of squaring a circle, trisecting an angle, and doubling a cube. He also listened to classical music, read books, and sometimes wrote poetry. Dollezhal considered radio and television a great misfortune for mankind. The academician said that these inventions interfere with thinking and teach to believe stupid speakers.
Nikolai Antonovich died at the age of 101 on November 20, 2000. Four years later, his wife passed away. They are buried in the village of Kozino, Moscow Region.
Memory
In 2002, a bust was placed on Academician Dollezhal in Moscow.
In December 2010, one of the streets of the city of Podolsk was named after him, where Nikolai Antonovich spent his childhood and youth. Also in the building of the former school in which he studied, a memorial plaque was installed.
In September 2018, Academician Dollezhal Square appeared in the Central Administrative District of the Russian capital. It is located in front of the building of the research institute, which was led by a scientist.