Karl Plaude

(Kārlis Plaude). Born Mar. 15 (27), 1897, in the village of Jumurda, in what is now Ergļi Raion, Latvian SSR; died Dec. 31, 1975. Soviet scientist in heat and power engineering. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1960); academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR (1951). Member of the CPSU since 1946.

Plaude graduated from the Leningrad Civil Engineering Institute in 1926. From 1926 to 1946 he worked in construction and installation organizations. From 1932 to 1938 he taught in higher educational institutions in Leningrad, and from 1945 to 1953, at the Latvian University. From 1946 to 1970 he was the director of the Institute of Physics and Energetics of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR. From 1951 to 1958 he was academician-secretary of the Division of Technical Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR; from 1958 to 1960 he was vice-president, and from 1960 to 1970 president, of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR.

Plaude’s main works deal with the development of power systems and the use in heat supply systems of coolants with improved performance. He also studied the thermal and hydraulic characteristics of automatic heat-supply systems. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Latvia from 1960 to 1971 and a deputy to the sixth to eighth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He received the State Prize of the Latvian SSR in 1960 and was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, and medals.