Vyacheslav Fedorovich Kvasnitsky Head of the Department of Welding Technology Doctor of Engineering, Professor Email: welding@nuos.edu.ua; kvas38@ukr.net ORCID: Scopus ID: 6506813333 Web of Science ID: U-4065-2017 Google Scholar:scholar.google.com.ua/citations?user=VT_YnpkAAAAJ&hl=uk

Core courses:

Theory of welding processes; specialized welding methods; brazing of materials; joining of special steels, alloys, and other materials.

Research interests:

innovative technologies for joining and processing materials in mechanical engineering, shipbuilding, and modern engineering.

VYACHESLAV FEDOROVICH KVASNITSKY was born on June 7, 1938, in the village of Nadezhdivka, Golovanivsky District, Kirovograd Oblast. He graduated from Secondary School No. 1 in Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv Oblast, in 1955. He enrolled in the Faculty of Shipbuilding at the Admiral S.Y. Makarov Mykolaiv Shipbuilding Institute. At that time, the competition for admission to the faculty was 8 applicants per spot. After completing four years of study, V.F. Kvasnitsky transferred to a new specialty opened at the faculty, “Equipment and Technology of Welding Production,” since this technology was and remains fundamental in shipbuilding, and its mechanization and automation were the primary objectives. What attracted him was that ship gas turbine construction was rapidly developing in Mykolaiv at that time. While traditional low-alloy steels were used in ship hull construction, the primary structural materials in gas turbine manufacturing were high-alloy steels and heat-resistant nickel alloys, which required new welding methods and technologies. Since the efficiency of gas turbines depends on gas temperature, the plant received new materials annually—ranging from heat-resistant alloys to ceramics—and new welding and brazing methods were developed and utilized.

The newly formed group completed an extended training course, and in June 1961, its graduates received diplomas as “Shipbuilding Engineers specializing in welding” and were assigned to shipbuilding and machine-building enterprises, including the “Southern Turbine Plant” (PTZ), the Southern Machine-Building Plant (PMZ) in Dnipropetrovsk, the E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute, research institutes of the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry, their branches, and plants in southern Ukraine, the Baltic states, northern Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

Most graduates have become candidates and doctors of science, heads and deputy heads of enterprises, and recipients of State Prizes. They have become distinguished professionals in various fields. This is largely due to the research work they began in their fifth year at the institute. Their thesis projects and research were linked to specific real-world topics and industrial applications. For example, V.F. Kvasnitsky worked on the technology and equipment for vacuum diffusion welding of heat-resistant nickel alloys used in gas turbines. In his thesis project, a setup was designed and research was conducted; a year later, the UDZV-DT (vacuum diffusion welding setup for turbine parts) was manufactured at the Department of Welding Production, where V.F. Kvasnitsky worked as an assistant. At the PTZ, the first cooled nozzle blades were manufactured using vacuum diffusion welding of the leading edge.

The installation of the UDZV-DT marked the beginning of the use of vacuum technologies at PTZ, where they are now the primary methods (electron beam welding, brazing, sputtering, and casting).

In 1964–1965 and 1974–1975, V. F. Kvasnitsky completed an internship in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, whose shipyards were fulfilling a major order for the Soviet Union, and worked at the Welding Institute in Ljubljana (Slovenia).

In 1991, a group of scientists and specialists from the E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute, the Prometey Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering, the Energia Scientific and Production Association, and other organizations was awarded the USSR Council of Ministers Prize in Science and Technology for the creation, development, and widespread industrial implementation of vacuum technologies and equipment. Among the laureates were also graduates of the Department of Welding Production: Dr. of Technical Sciences, Prof. V.F. Kvasnitsky; Deputy Chief Engineer of PTZ V.P. Nikolaenko; and Deputy Director of the Central Research Institute “Sirius” V.M. Emelyanov.

On this topic, V.F. Kvasnytskyi defended his master’s thesis (1967) and doctoral dissertation (1987, Central Research Institute of Chemical Technology “Prometheus”).

The department’s research focus—welding and related processes and technologies in gas turbine engineering—began to develop in 1960 and, by the 1980s, had reached the all-Union and international levels, extending beyond the field of shipbuilding. In the 1970s and 1980s, a wide range of research was conducted and equipment was developed for welding, brazing, and electron beam deposition in ultra-high vacuum for space technology and nuclear energy.

In 1981, the VVU-1D ultra-high-vacuum complex—a system without parallel anywhere in the world—was developed and put into operation for diffusion bonding, brazing, and ion-plasma spraying in the manufacture of standard components for the “Energia” space rocket; it was designated a National Treasure of Ukraine.

In 1985, at the institute, the Department of Welding Technology established an industry-specific laboratory of the USSR Ministry of Shipbuilding for the joining of heat-resistant materials, on the initiative and under the direction of V.F. Kvasnitsky.

Since 1980, V.F. Kvasnitsky has served as head of the Department of Welding Technology. Concurrently, he served as acting dean of the Faculty of Shipbuilding (1975–1987), and on January 14, 1988, he was appointed by the USSR Ministry of Higher Education as Vice Rector for Research at the Moscow Institute of Civil Engineering (1988–1990), and was subsequently elected through a competitive selection process to the position of Vice Rector for Research at the Ukrainian State Maritime Technical University (1993–2009).

Since January 29, 2010, V.F. Kvasnitsky has served as director of the Research Institute of “Soldering and Pressure Welding in a Vacuum” at the National University of Kyiv and head of the scientific school “Soldering and Welding of Heat-Resistant and Special Materials.” In total, the school has trained 12 candidates of sciences, 2 doctors of sciences, and 1 PhD.

V.F. Kvasnitsky established the “Shipbuilding Training Center for Welding Technology” at the university in collaboration with shipyards in southern Ukraine, and served as its first director. The center trained 24 leading welding specialists, who received diplomas as “European Welding Engineers” and “International Welding Engineers.” The training was conducted under a German-Ukrainian grant and the “Transform” program.

V.F. Kvasnytskyi’s scientific and pedagogical achievements are reflected in more than 300 scientific, methodological, and official documents of the Ukrainian Shipping Register. He has published 10 monographs, textbooks, and teaching aids approved by the Ministry of Education and Science in Ukrainian, English, and Russian, as well as approximately 270 scientific articles, and has received about 30 copyright certificates and patents. He was one of the co-authors of the Encyclopedia of Mechanical Engineering, Volume III-4.

For his scientific and educational achievements, V.F. Kvasnytskyi was awarded the honorary title of “Honored Worker of Public Education of Ukraine,” the “Veteran of Labor” medal, the “For Scientific Achievements” and “Petro Mohyla” badges, “For Merit,” and a letter of appreciation from the Prime Minister of Ukraine for his diligent work and significant personal contribution to scientific and scientific-technical activities. He received a diploma as a laureate of the USSR Council of Ministers Prize in Science and Technology in 1991, and a diploma as a laureate of the State Prize of Ukraine in Science and Technology in 2011.

V.F. Kvasnitsky was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects (RINA) and the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST) in the United Kingdom, as well as several public academies in Ukraine (Engineering, Shipbuilding, and Higher Education). He was a member of the section of the Committee on State Prizes of Ukraine (1997–2015) and a member of the Specialized Academic Council of the E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute (1997–2015).