Georgii Kurdiumov

Born Feb. 1 (14), 1902, in Ryl’sk, in present-day Kursk Oblast. Soviet physicist; academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1953; corresponding member, 1946) and of the Ukrainian SSR (1939). Hero of Socialist Labor (1969).

Kurdiumov graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute in 1926. From 1925 to 1932 he worked at the Leningrad Physicotechnical Institute. In 1932 he joined the Dnepropetrovsk Physicotechnical Institute. In 1944 he became director of the Institute of Metallurgy and Metal Physics of the Central Scientific Research Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy. In 1962 he became director of the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Kurdiumov carried out pioneering studies of martensite transformations in crystalline materials, work that was of fundamental importance for the theory of phase transitions and the heat treatment of steels and alloys. Together with his co-workers, he studied the mechanism and kinetics of the transformation of austenite to martensite.

Kurdiumov discovered nondiffusional phase transitions. He made great contributions to the development of physical metallurgy and the physics of plastic deformations, hardening and softening, and alloying. He also developed a number of new experimental methods.

Kurdiumov was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1949. He was elected to the German Academy of Sciences in 1970 and to other academies of science throughout the world. He has been awarded three Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.