Evgeny Paton and his brainchild

Evgeny Oskarovich Paton is the scientist in the field of welding and bridge engineering, professor, Doctor of technical sciences, academician of Academy of Sciences of UkrSSR.

He was born on the 5^th of March 1870 in Nice in the family of the Russian diplomat. In 1894 he graduated from Dresden Polytechnic Institute and came back to St. Petersburg as a famous engineer and the designer of Dresden railway station. A year later Paton graduated from Petersburg Institute of Railway Roads.

In 1929 he decided to change his profession and organized a welding laboratory and Electric Welding Committee, on the base of which the Electric Welding Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the UkrSSR was founded in Kiev in 1934. He headed this Institute to the end of his life.

During the II World War the equipment and technology of the automatic welding of special steels, tanks, bombs were implemented in defence industry under his supervision. In post-war years he headed the works in the country on the creation of fundamentals of welding, wide implementation of welding in industry.

During 1945-1952 Evgeny Paton was a Vice-President of the Academy of Sciences of the UkrSSR. He created the methods of design of rational bridge spans, investigated the conditions of their operation, suggested methods of restoration of damaged bridges. He carried out research works in the field of calculation and strength of welded structures, mechanization of welding processes, supervised the development of the method of automatic submerged arc welding.

His brainchild – a beautiful bridge over the Dnipro – was named after Paton. Its length is 1521 meters. It is first in the world all-welded bridge – the mounting of all its elements was made using automatic electric welding. The idea to make all-welded bridge was provided by Paton. He made a revolutionary proposal – to refuse from riveted connections and proceed to welding, which gave advantages in weight, durability and reliability. The idea was approved by Nikita Khrushchev.

The construction of the Paton Bridge started already before the war, but all of the bridge piers were blown up by fascists when they left Kiev. Nevertheless piers were restored and the bridge construction was completed to 10 anniversary of liberation of Kiev from fascist invaders – on the 5^th of November 1953.

Words:

Nice - Ницца

Implement - внедрять

Submerged arc welding – дуговая сварка под флюсом

Riveted connections – заклепочное соединение

Bridge spans – пролет моста

Pier – устой моста, бык моста