Nikolai Veniaminovich Kalakutskii

Born Feb. 9 (21), 1831, in Bel’sk District, Smolensk Province; died Jan. 17 (29), 1889, in St. Petersburg. Russian scientist in metallurgy and artillery production, a major general of artillery (1884).

Kalakutskii graduated from a special military school in 1849 and served in the army until 1861. Between 1861 and 1870 he was artillery acceptance officer at the Prince Mikhail Steel Cannon Factory in Zlatoust. Between 1871 and 1884 he was an engineer at the Obukhov Plant in St. Petersburg and in 1884 became chief engineer (with the title of glavnyi tekhnik, chief technician) at the plant. In 1867, Kalakutskii was the first to explain fully how the forging process influences the properties of forged pieces and to explain the causes of metallurgical defects in steel. Together with A. S. Lavrov he discovered and explained the phenomenon of segregation in steel (1866). From 1870 to 1878 he conducted research to select steel for rifle barrels; his experiments measuring the pressure of powder gases in the rifle barrels and studying the effect of a number of ballistic factors on the pressure were especially important. In his well-known works on residual (internal) stresses in steel and cast iron, Kalakutskii was the first to explain the mechanism of these stresses; he developed a methodology for quantitative analysis of them in gun barrels and in the bodies of shells.