BERNADSKY

RUSSIA (see also List of Individuals)

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13.4.1882 Penza/RU - 19.6.1935 Leningrad/RU

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Nikolai Mikhailovich Bernadsky was born in the European part of Russia on the Sura River. He graduated as a hydraulic engineer from the Saint Petersburg Railways Institute in 1910 and then contributed to river transportation systems. From 1917 to 1922 he was in charge of public works for the city of Eysk in the Krasnodar region in Southern Russia, and until 1927 collaborated for the Volkhov dam on the Volkhov River close to Novgorod west of Moscow. From 1933, Bernadsky was a scientific collaborator of VNIIG, the hydraulics laboratory of Leningrad, where he developed into a specialist in hydraulic engineering.

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Bernadsky worked in the following topics: Turbulence of open channel flows, sediment transport in rivers and thermal characteristics of reservoirs and lakes. Besides these more theoretical contributions, he was all through his career also involved in dam engineering, and thereby was in charge of dam designs on the Volkhov, the Svir and the Volga Rivers. Bernadsky also proposed a method for dam break flow based on model tests that was subsequently applied to risk mapping and to the prediction of the outflow of water from dams. These issues are currently important because of a number of large floods released by dams and dikes that threatened the infrastructure of the tailwater region. These phenomena can hardly be simulated numerically given the complexities of a three-phase flow. Also hydraulic laboratory studies are difficult because of sediment flow below the water current, that cannot easily be visualized. Modern optical experimentation may be suitable to detect such flow structures provided that the water quality can be kept excellent for visualization.

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_{Bernadsky, N.M. (1931). Theory and practice of thermal basin computation. Leningrad (in Russian).}

_{Bernadsky, N.M. (1933). River hydraulics — theory and methodology. State Energetic Publishing House: Leningrad (in Russian).}

_{Bernadsky, N.M., Proskuriakov, B.V. (1933). Problèmes théoriques et pratiques du calcul des bassins de réfrigération. Gosenergoizdat: Moscow (in Russian).}

_{Melua, A.I. (2001). Bernadsky, Nikolai Mikhailovich. Energetics of Russia: 50. Humanistica: Moscow, Saint Petersburg (in Russian).}

_{Mikhailov, G.K. (2008). Nikolai Mikhailovich Bernadsky. Personal communication. P}

_{Proskuriakov, B.V. (1953). Method of unsteady flow computations proposed by N.M. Bernadsky, as applied to flow caused by instantaneous destruction of dams. Moscow.}