Zinovii Shulman

Zinovii P. Shulman (23.02.1924, Ptich, Gomel Province - 04.02.2007, Minsk, Belarus) - an outstanding hydrodynamics scientist, thermal physicist, rheophysicist, honored worker of science of the Republic of Belarus, former vice-president of the Rheological Society of the C.I.S., former chief research worker of the state research establishment [http://www.itmo.by/ “A.V. Luikov Heat and Mass Transfer Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus”] , Doctor of Technical Sciences, and a professor.

Zinovii P. Shulman was born and spent his childhood in a small township near the railway station Ptich, Gomel Province. Later their family moved to Gomel where he went to high school and prepared to go to university. But the war broke out and, as many of his coevals, young Zinovii went to the front to defend his Motherland. It is with honor that master sergeant Zinovii Shulman marched along the roads of the Second World War. The bravery, courage, and valor of the gallant warrior were marked with high battle service decorations – Order of Glory and Order of the Patriotic War, and also with many medals.

After his military discharge in 1947 and passing high-school graduation exams without attending classes, his dream to study further came true - Zinovii P. Shulman enters the famous Leningrad Politechnical Institute, where he is taught by outstanding scientists and pedagogues, first of all by Academician Abram Joffe, and graduates from the department headed by Professor L. G. Loitsyansky. As an engineer in aerohydrodynamics, he goes to work on an assignment at a major industrial design office in the city of Syzran where he works with persistence, army-like ardor, and rare enthusiasm on creating new equipment products. He is captivated with the process of generating the new – ideas, projects, inventions and simply technical novelties. While working in a large team and being exceedingly charged with current and prospective assignments, Zinovii Shulman takes an active part in the work which is called scientific innovation now. He organizes several scientific cells at the plant, publishes his first research paper in the journal “Energomachinostroyeniye”, makes inventions, and, they were great indeed! One of his early proposals was of quite fundamental nature: “ A split wheel for a water turbine”. He could easily become a major designer of new motors and machines, but he succumbs to his long-standing craving for science. In 1957, Shulman returns to his native Belarus, he gets employed by the Institute of Power Engineering of the [http://www.ac.by/ BSSR Academy of Sciences] where he consecutively passes through all the stages of scientific development, acquiring, accumulating, and, what is more important, creating new knowledge.

In 1963, a new scientific school – investigation of the flow and heat and mass transfer in rheologically complex media – began to develop at the [http://www.itmo.by/ Heat and Mass Transfer Institute (HMTI)] on the initiative of Academician A. V. Luikov, member of the BSSR Academy of Sciences, and Zinovii P. Shulman. As early as 1966 the pioneering monograph “Boundary layer of Non-Newtonian Fluids” (Z. P. Shulman and B. M. Berkovsky) was published. In it, the author generalized his own theoretical developments and descriptions of convective processes of heat and momentum transfer in external flow of nonlinear-viscous fluids past bodies of various geometry. Subsequent results of the new theoretical and experimental investigations are reflected in Shulman’s fundamental work “Convective Heat and Mass Transfer of Rheologically Complex Fluids” (Moscow: Energia, 1975) and in a large series of publications of the Rheophysics Laboratory in highly authoritative domestic and foreign publications. The monograph gives an explanation of the important phenomenon discovered by A. V. Luikov, Z. P. Shulman, and B. I. Puris – delay of hydrodynamic separation in flow of polymer solutions past blunt bodies. In the same years B. I. Puris and Z. P. Shulman, while conducting sophisticated physical experiments, discovered rubber mechanical behavior of gases in high-intensity rotating flows with considerable rates of shear deformations in the interdisk gap with eccentricity.

The generalized law of nonlinear-viscous flow (1966) formulated by Zinovii P. Shulman and his followers is widely used in the scientific world. Based on this law, six monographs have been written and various investigations have been actively conducted.A fundamental study of the electric rheological effect (ERE) was started in 1966, and that of the magnetic rheological effect (MRE) began in 1967. The results of investigations led to new theories, and also to numerous important engineering applications at the level of inventions (over 170). Among them are robots and manipulators, machine-tools, electro-acoustic equipment, instruments, icromachines. A large series of investigations on the said subject is reflected in 190 articles, papers, and monographs written personally or in co-authorship.

Honored worker of science of the Republic of Belarus, Professor Zinovii P. Shulman is rightly considered a world pioneer in ERE and MRE. In 1982, based on the results of the all-union contest, he was mentioned among the five best inventors of the USSR. In 1997 he was awarded an annual G. V. Vinogradov prize of the rheological Society of the C.I.S. He has been honored with high recognition as a scientist and awarded decorations by foreign universities (Sheffield, Warsaw, Seoul, and Krakow). During more than 45 years of work at the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Zinovii Shulman rose from a beginner researcher to a scientist of wide international renown and recognition. Shulman has been conducting exceptional large-scale research work, and also research organization and research education activities. He is the founder of a well-known domestic school in rheology and rheophysics, the author of 29 monographs and over 400 scientific papers, and also 243 inventor's certificates and patents. 29 Doctoral dissertations and 108 Candidate’s ones have been prepared under his supervision. In the recent years and up to his decease Professor Shulman worked a lot and achieved success in the field of biomedical problems and, in particular, the rheology of blood, description and modeling of thermal processes in controlled hyperthermia and hypothermia , and also in photodynamic therapy.

External links

* [http://www.chemtec.org/directory/shulman.php Chemtec biography page]