PETROV G I

RUSSIA (see also List of Individuals)

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31.5.1912 Pinega/RU - 13.5.1987 Moscow/RU

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Georgy Ivanovich Petrov was born in the Archangel region. He graduated in 1935 from the Department of Aeromechanics at the Moscow State University and then joined as a research scientist the Central Aero-hydrodynamic Institute TsAGI to collaborate with Sergei Alekseevich Chaplygin (1869-1942). From 1944, Petrov headed then a scientific research establishment where he met Mstislav V. Keldish (1911-1978), with whom he developed supersonic flight directed towards aircraft diffusers, a research awarded in 1949 with a State Prize. Petrov was a professor of aero-mechanics and gas dynamics at the Moscow State University from 1955. From 1953 he was a Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and promoted to Member in 1958. From 1966 he directed the newly created Institute of Space Research of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where space gas dynamics was developed.

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At TsAGI, Petrov concentrated his research attention on the stability of viscous flow. He laid the methodological foundations for the origin of fluid turbulence, based on the propagation of small perturbations in viscous flow. The approach to the problem of transition from the laminar to the turbulent boundary layers is an enigma that continues to occupy hydrodynamicists. Petrov proposed to use the Galerkin method for solving the governing equations of Heisenberg. He provided a rigorous mathematical approach for the solution of the non-conservative case. The approach is currently often referred to Galerkin-Petrov. Petrov also erected a "flying laboratory" to study the propagation of oscillations in boundary layers and the external flow for wing profiles. He presented hot-wire measurements of the turbulence characteristics at different altitudes of the atmosphere to demonstrate that the laminar boundary layer in flight conditions builds up long before the transition to the fully turbulent state. From 1950 Petrov directed the research activities towards the operation of supersonic diffusers and nozzles, thereby analyzing the pattern of shock waves. He was awarded the Zhukovsky Prize for that work. He was the founder and chief editor of the Fluid Dynamics journal from 1966.

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_{Anonymous (1972). G.I. Petrov. Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta Series 1 27: 102-104. P Anonymous (1987). In memory of Georgy Ivanovich Petrov. Fluid dynamics 22(4): 823-826. Petrov, G.I. (1955). The propagation of oscillations in a viscous liquid and the inception of tur- bulence. Moscow (in Russian).}

_{Petrov, G.I. (1940). Application of Galerkin's methods to the problem of flow stability in a viscous liquid. Moscow (in Russian).}