Life and works of academician B. G. Galerkin

Boris Galerkin [20.2 (4.3) .1871, Polotsk - 07.12.1945, Leningrad], an engineer and scientist in the field of the theory of elasticity, academician of the USSR (1935, Corresponding Member of 1928), engineer lieutenant-general. In 1899 he graduated from St. Petersburg Institute of Technology and began working at the Kharkov factory of Russian Locomotive and Mechanical society. In 1903 – he was an engineer under construction line of the East China Railway, six months - a head of the technical department of the Northern Mechanical and Boiler Plant in St. Petersburg. In 1906 Galerkin becomes a member of the Petersburg Committee, and became a professional revolutionary (never serves). In 1906 he was arrested for taking part in the revolutionary movement, was sentenced to 1.5 years in prison. In prison he wrote his first scientific work "The Theory of buckling and its application to the calculation of structures" (published in 1909). Since 1909 he has taught at St. Petersburg Technology Institute. In 1920, he was elected a head of department of structural mechanics and theory of elasticity in the mechanical faculty. In 1924-1929 he taught also at Leningrad University. From 1931 to 1941, Galerkin worked at All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Hydraulic Engineering, he led a group of experts in the field of structural mechanics and theory of elasticity. He initiated the establishment of large laboratories: hydro-engineering, soil mechanics, concrete, and of optical methods of stress analysis. He compiled tables for the calculation of dams and for retaining walls of trapezoidal profile, and formulas to determine the coefficient of elastic resistance in hydraulic tunnels of circular shape. In 1934 he received two academic degrees: Doctor of Technical Sciences and Doctor of mathematics, as well as the title of Honored Worker of Science and Technology of the RSFSR. He advised about the design and construction of large hydroelectric power plants (HPP Volkhovskaya, Dneproges and others) and power plants ("Red October", "Dubrovsky" and others) in USSR. Upon completion of construction of the Dnieper (1932) Galerkin was a member of the Governmental Commission for its acceptance. In 1936 he was appointed chairman of the committee on the examination of the project construction of the Palace of Soviets in Moscow. He was one of the founders and a first director of the Institute of Mechanics of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1939), the chief editor of the journal "Applied Mathematics and Mechanics." In 1939 he headed the department of structural mechanics of Military Engineering Technical University in Leningrad, and was promoted to engineer lieutenant-general. He participated in the defense of Leningrad. In the summer of 1941, with the beginning of World War II, the Commission for the construction management of Leningrad defense fortifications was established. He was the laureate of the Stalin Prize of the first degree in 1942 and was awarded two Orders of Lenin. Galerkin's works relating to the problems of structural mechanics and theory of elasticity, contributed to the introduction of modern methods of mathematical analysis in the study of buildings, structures and machines. He developed effective methods of exact and approximate integration of equations of the theory of elasticity. He was one of the founders of the theory of plate bending. He investigated the influence of the shape of the plate in the distribution efforts in it, the effect of the distribution of local pressure, the influence of the elasticity of the support contour. The form of solutions of equations of elastic equilibrium which Galerkin proposed in 1930, containing three biharmonic functions, it allowed to effectively address many important spatial problem of elasticity. In works on the theory of shells he abandoned the conventional hypotheses about the nature of change in the thickness displacement, and introduced the assumptions which ensure greater accuracy and the ability to extend the theory on the average thickness of the shell. Galerkin received a number of classical results. He proposed a method for solving problems of the elastic equilibrium of rods and plates, called "Bubnov-Galerkin method." He also have developed methods for solving differential equations of elasticity theory: the finite element method, applied for analytical and numerical solutions of differential equations in partial derivatives of mathematical analysis, is called by his name.