Minkevich, Nikolai Anatolevich

Minkevich, Nikolai Anatol’evich 

Born Feb. 5 (17), 1883, in Malmyzh, present-day Kirov Oblast; died Oct. 13, 1942, in Moscow. Soviet metallurgist; Honored Worker in Science and Technology of the RSFSR (1934).

Minkevich graduated from the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute in 1907. He worked at the Obukhov Plant from 1908 to 1914. In 1920 he became a professor at the Moscow Mining Academy (after 1930, the Moscow Steel Institute), where the department of physical metallurgy and heat treatment was founded on his initiative.

Minkevich’s work on the thermal and thermochemical treatment of steel facilitated the introduction of many new technological processes into machine building. He studied the nature of steel strength, transformations in steel, tool steels, and steels with special properties. Minkevich was the first to use pyrolysis gas for casehardening.

Minkevich participated in the design of the heat-treatment shops of the first Soviet aircraft, motor-vehicle, and tractor plants. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1941.

REFERENCE

N. A. Minkevich—vydaiushchiisia uchenyi-inzhener. Moscow, 1955. (Contains a list of Minkevich’s works.)