Sergey Boronin, Senior Researcher at the Skoltech Center for Hydrocarbon Production, was awarded the prestigious Academician G.I. Petrov Award. The official award ceremony took place during the opening of the NeZaTeGiUs 2018 conference, where Sergey Boronin gave an invited lecture.

This prize is awarded by the Russian National Committee for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics to Russian scientists for outstanding work in the field of the theory of hydrodynamic stability and turbulence. At the official ceremony, which is held every two years, the prize is awarded to two winners ‒ they can be both teams of scientists and individual researchers.

S. Boronin became a laureate of the prize named after Academician G.I. Petrov for his advanced research in the field of hydrodynamic stability of flows of multiphase and dispersed media.

"This is the result of 15 years of work that I started as a student of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics at Lomonosov Moscow State University," he said, emphasizing the importance and uniqueness of this field of research.

The control of laminar-turbulent flow transition is required for the successful planning and implementation of various technological processes, for example, pneumatic and hydraulic transport in pipelines, chemical reactors and ventilation ducts. Several oilfield service technologies are based on the control of instability that occurs at the interface of liquids with different physical properties (Safman-Taylor or Rayleigh-Taylor instability)," he noted.

"The theory of hydrodynamic stability and transition to a turbulent flow regime is at the junction of hydrodynamics and mathematics and, therefore, requires in-depth knowledge of both disciplines. As far as I know, only a few groups of researchers are working on the topic of instability of currents with a dispersed admixture in the world, and no one is actively engaged in this topic in Russia," he said.

He explained that the main distinguishing feature of his research is the consideration of new physical factors related to the influence of the flow configuration and parameters of the dispersed phase on the stability of flows with an admixture of particles.

"These factors have not been taken into account by other authors before," he said. "Our results allow us to significantly expand the scope of theoretical analysis of hydrodynamic stability, extending it to real dispersed and multiphase flows."

Sergey Boronin's works have been published in leading Russian and foreign journals on fluid mechanics ‒ Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Physical Review E, Fluid Mechanics and Reports of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"For me, receiving the award is a great honor and a huge responsibility," Boronin said. "It is very pleasant to realize that your work attracts the attention of the academic community; it gives my work a new impetus and serves as a powerful incentive to continue the research that has begun."

S. Boronin added that he considers it his duty to promote this undeservedly neglected field of research among young scientists and students in Russia and abroad.

The award is named after the outstanding Soviet mechanical scientist, Academician Georgy Ivanovich Petrov, Professor of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics at Lomonosov Moscow State University, whose work was of crucial importance for the development of applied gas dynamics. He played a key role in the formation of a new scientific field – space gas dynamics. In particular, he participated in the development of thermal protection technology for the first Soviet spacecraft. Academician G.I. Petrov was an able leader and organizer. He headed the Department of Aeromechanics and Gas Dynamics at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University for 32 years, and also took an active part in the creation of the Institute of Space Research of the USSR Academy of Sciences.