DIDKOVSKY

RUSSIA (see also List of Individuals)

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.. 1903 Volkhov/RU -.. 1986 Kiev/RU

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Mikhail Mefodievich Didkovsky was born in the Poltava region of Ukraine. He was an expert in hydraulics, hydraulic engineering and hydropower production. He graduated in 1929 from the Kiev Melioration Institute as a hydraulic engineer. From 1936 to 1941, when Didkovsky had to participate in the Great War, he was a scientific collaborator of the Kiev Institute of Hydrology. From 1946 to 1958, he acted as the laboratory head of the Kiev Institute of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering. Didkovsky was appointed in 1958 director of the latter institution until 1965, and greatly expanded it using his exceptional organizational talents. From 1963, the Institute worked also in hydromechanics with particular reference to turbulence problems, resulting in the more appropriate designation of the current Kiev Institute of Hydromechanics.

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Didkovsky's personal contributions to hydromechanics may be summarized under the heading of hydraulic engineering. He was thus at the forefront in developing methods to predict river flows both from a hydraulic point of view and also by adding hydraulic structures such as dams and other regulation works to improve a river course for hydraulic purposes. He suggested research works in river turbulence analysis and aimed to find the hydrodynamic relations with environmental processes in river courses. He was interested in the roughness pattern of complex river reaches both as described with an hydraulic and an hydrodynamic approach. In parallel, large local roughness is also known as a positive agent in the development of river fauna and flora, despite relatively few general results are available until today. Didkovsky aimed at a novel definition of the roughness scale in natural watercourses, a problem that received significant attention in the West from the 1970s and the 1980s only. These novel observations were subsequently used for designing earth channels mainly for water supply and drainage purposes.

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_{Didkovsky, M.M., Poznyaya, N.G. (1961). Investigation of the resistance of the surface of separation. Dopovidi Akademie Nauk Ukrainskoi (3): 311-315 (in Russian, with English summary).}

_{Didkovsky, M.M., Poznyaya, N.G. (1963). Experimental investigation of the tangential stress on the bottom on a section of expansion of the stream. Dopovidi Akademie Nauk Ukrainskoi (6): 739-743 (in Russian, with English summary).}

_{Shchodro, A.O. (2006). Mikhail Mefodievich Didkovsky. Personal communication. P}