Donetsk School of Mechanics and Donetsk Conferences
On Stability, Control and Rigid Bodies Dynamics
of
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
e-mail:
kovalev@iamm.ac.donetsk.ua
Donetsk Scientific Centre of the Academy of Sciences of Ukrainian SSR
(National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine at present time) was created in 1965.
Before this time the academic science was not represented in Donbass, though,
certainly, in such large industrial region the technical science and the
technical education were advanced before. Five
institutes came into a structure of the new scientific centre and one of
them was the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics (IAMM NASU). The
founder and the first director of IAMM NASU was I.I.Danilyuk. He managed to
attract a group of large scientists to its organization. This group included
mathematicians Ya.B.Lopatinskii, I.I.Gikhman, G.D.Suvorov, mechanicians
A.S.Kosmodamianskii and P.V.Kharlamov, cybernetician A.M.Bogomolov. They
generated and headed departments of the new institute.
The department of applied mechanics was headed by P.V.Kharlamov
(1924-2001). In 1965 he was elected as a correspondent-member of Ukrainian
Academy of Sciences and arrived to Donetsk from Novosibirsk Academictown
together with his colleagues and pupils (then still students).They formed the
kernel of the future Donetsk school of mechanics. The basic directions of
researches at Donetsk school of mechanics are connected with problems of common
mechanics and first of all with problems of rigid bodies dynamics and of rigid
bodies systems dynamics. The method of invariant relations being an effective
tool for construction of explicit solutions of classical problems of rigid
bodies dynamics and their generalizations was created here, the equations of
loose and fixed axoids of the angular velocity vector were obtained, that
allowed to give the visual geometric representation of motion of a rigid body
(P.V.Kharlamov). Due to Kirchhoff's analogy between the problem of a rigid body
motion and the problem of curving of a thin elastic rod, the application of
such geometric approach in the theory of elastic rods gave a mode to research
the form of an elastic line of an anisotropic rod (A.A.Ilyukhin). In the
problem of motion of a heavy gyrostat and its generalizations methods of
construction and research of special classes of motions (precession, isoconic,
asymptotic) were offered, the neighbourhoods of known explicit solutions were
investigated (G.V.Gorr). With the help of the specially developed method of
oriented manifolds, the problems of
controllability and stabilizability were solved for a broad class of
nonlinear systems, on the base of concept about the inverse system the
effective methods of solving of direct and inverse problems of the control
theory were created (A.M.Kovalev). Essential outcomes were obtained in the
research of partial stability and stability under persistent disturbations, in
problems of the passive and active stabilization, and also in the study of
critical cases of stability of nonlinear systems, including the systems with
right-hand sides unbounded in time (A.Ya.Savchenko). Now 10 full professors and
doctors of sciences and 59 candidates of sciences, working in various
scientific and educational institutions, belong to Donetsk school of mechanics.
In June, 1969 the known scientists, academician of Ukrainian Academy of
sciences V.O.Kononenko, corresponding member of Ukrainian Academy of sciences
N.A.Kilchevskii, professor Yu.A.Arkhangelskii arrived in Donetsk as the
official opponents on a defence of candidate thesises. P.V.Kharlamov offered
them to take advantage of favorable case and to exchange information with
Donetsk colleagues about outcomes of the last researches. This event was
officially registered as the First republican meeting on rigid bodies dynamics.
The practice of scientific contacts has demonstrated convincingly the high
effectiveness of thematic meetings on separate directions of science. And it is
no wonder, that the idea of special narrow meetings in the field of different
actual problems of analitical mechanics, suggested by P.V.Kharlamov, was
accepted by many specialists with great interest. Therefore in 1971 the
Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics NASU organized the Second
republican meeting on problems of rigid bodies dynamics. 40 persons took part
in its work, 36 comunications were done. Among the participants of this meeting
one can see both the known professors V.V.Beletskii, V.A.Grobov, V.G.Dyomin and
the young at that time scientists L.G.Lobas, A.P.Markeev and others.
The time which followed after this meeting was rich by large conferences
and congresses, and also by symposiums on actual problems of theoretical and
applied mechanics. Probably, therefore there was a ten years pause in Donetsk
meetings of the scientists-mechanicians. But then the comprehension of high
value and necessity of such meetings on a regular basis appeared again. On
Third (1981) and Fourth (1984) meetings on rigid bodies dynamics the basic
scientific schools in the field of common mechanics and the principal centres
of science of all former Soviet Union were represented. So, for example,
submissions to the Fourth meeting totaled 130 papers from 180 authors. Among
them 37 were doctors and 74 were candidates of sciences, 38 persons were from
Donetsk, and remaining 142 were from another cities. Actually 115 persons took
part in the work of the Fourth meeting, 90 communications were done, 77
participants arrived from anoter cities: Moscow (37), Kiev (12), Leningrad (4),
Kazan (3), Gorkii (6), Tashkent (2), Irkutsk (1), Khabarovsk (1),
Dnepropetrovsk (3), Volgograd (2), Kharkov (3), Odessa (1), Zaporozhye (1),
Izhevsk (1).
The Fifth Donetsk meeting of the scientists-mechanicians was held in
September, 1990 on Azov sea coast. With allowance for its scale it was not
named meeting no longer, but conference, as well as all followed after it. The
theme of Donetsk conferences, saving the initial direction onto problems of
rigid bodies dynamics and rigid bodies systems dynamics, was expanded and
corrected according to the development of science and technology: there
appeared the problems of stability, control of the motion, and problems of
continuum mechanics, for which solution means and methods of analytical
mechanics were essentially used. After the new independent states formation on
the territory of the former Soviet Union the old scientific connections managed
to save in general, and the possibilities for scientific contacts to the
colleagues from Western Europe, USA, countries of Asia simultaneously extended.
Therefore the Sixth conference "Stability, Control and Rigid Bodies Dynamics"
(1996) had the international status.
The Seventh International Conference "Stability, Control and Rigid
Bodies Dynamics", held in 1999, was timed to the 75th year from birth of
Professor P.V.Kharlamov, who is the founder of Donetsk school of mechanics. In
this connection the accent on the problems of rigid bodies dynamics was done in
the work of this conference. Besides the Institute of Applied Mathematics and
Mechanics, Donetsk National university took part in its organization. 108
communications from 147 scientists of 11 countries were submitted to this
conference. The main scientific topics of the section sessions were: Dynamics
of rigid body and rigid bodies systems, Stability and control in dynamical
systems, Methods of rigid bodies dynamics in the theory of elasticity and the
adjacent problems. The Round Table Discussion "Dynamics of rigid body:
past, present, future" was held.
Proceedings of the conference are published in the issue 31 of the
collection of scientific papers "Mechanics of Rigid Body", which is
publishing by IAMM NASU, and also as a separate issue of the journal
"Multibody System Dynamics" (2001, ¹ 6).