Heat Engineering Institute

Heat Engineering Institute 

(full name, F. E. Dzerzhinskii All-Union Scientific Research Heat Engineering Institute), an institute under the Ministry of Energy Resources and Electrification of the USSR; the principal institute of the branch dealing with the operation of nuclear and nonnuclear thermal power plants.

Founded in Moscow in 1921, the institute was renamed in honor of F. E. Dzerzhinskii in 1930. Research done at the institute in the years 1921–41 made possible the inclusion of low-grade fuels in the country’s fuel reserves and helped solve many problems associated with the construction of power facilities in the USSR. During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) and early postwar years, the institute’s work was devoted to the reconstruction and repair of steam power plants. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the institute developed the scientific basis for utilization in the Soviet power plants of steam with high, superhigh, and, later, supercritical operating parameters. The Heat Engineering institute is among the organizations concerned with the introduction of systems of district heat supply in the country. In the early 1960’s, the institute began developing steam-powered units for nuclear power plants.

Important contributions to the development of power systems and the training of specialists have been made by such scientists at the institute as Professor L. K. Ramzin, A. V. Shchegliaev—a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR—and Professors F. G. Prokhorov and I. E. Romm.

The Heat Engineering Institute maintains a special design bureau, specialized branches in Cheliabinsk and Krasnoiarsk, departments in Gorlovka and Kharkov, and two experimental power plants. There is a graduate program, and the institute is authorized to accept dissertations for candidate’s and doctor’s degrees. It publishes Trudy VTI (Proceedings of the All-Union Heat Engineering Institute). The institute has been awarded two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor (1946,1971).

V. K. RUBIN