Dobrovolskii, Vladimir Vladimirovich

Born May 25 (Jun. 6), 1880, in Mozyr’, now in Gomel’ Oblast; died Aug. 18, 1956, in Moscow. Soviet scientist in the field of the theory of mechanisms. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1946).

Dobrovol’skii graduated from the Moscow Higher Technical School in 1906. From 1929 to 1940 he was a professor at the N. E. Zhukovskii Air Force Academy. Between 1930 and 1949 he headed the subdepartment of the theory of mechanisms at the Moscow Machine Tool Institute. From 1937 to 1953 he worked at the laboratory of mechanisms, automatic machines, and automatic lines at the Institute of Machine Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1938, Dobrovol’skii provided a classification of mechanisms that aided the development of the kinematics and dynamic force analysis of mechanisms. Between 1940 and 1945 he worked out a theory of spherical mechanisms based on the analogy between plane and spherical mechanisms. Part of his work is devoted to the theory and design of geared mechanisms. A recipient of the P. L. Chebyshev Prize of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1946), he was awarded the Order of Lenin and various medals.