Awarded for development of new processes and equipment for production of gases and cryogenic liquids, as well as for the development and implementation of technology for production of electricity in power systems.
RAS Academician.
Valery Kostyuk was born 26 August 1940 in Zaporozhye. In 1963 he graduated from Chelyabinsk Polytechnical Institute and then worked until 1978 at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) from assistant to professor. From 1979 to today he has been director of the Low Temperature R&D Institute.
Under his leadership and direct participation, research has been conducted into processes of heat transfer and hydrodynamics of cryogenic liquids, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, neon, fluorine, ammonia and freons, when boiling in conditions of forced flow and large volume (information on liquid fluorine were the first obtained in world practice). A number of fundamental thermophysical tasks were solved of nonstationary transfer to single phase and two phase media. A new category has been developed of high-temperature superconducting electric machines, which have significantly higher specific energy indicators (3-4 fold) compared to traditional electric machines. A unique autonomous highly-efficient nitrogen system for cryogenic support for high capacity high-temperature superconductors was developed and introduced. For the first time in the world, experimental hybrid power lines have been created and tested with liquid hydrogen and superconducting cables based on the new superconducting compound magnesium diboride (MgD2). Large scale experimental research has been conducted on applying new superconductors in channels with liquid hydrogen. Major applied issues have been solved of cryogenic, aviation and space rocket technology for cryostatting cryogenic systems and a new class of refrigeration machines using ozone safe refrigerants have been created. Research has been conducted on working processes in rocket fuel tanks and pipelines with cryogenic fuel components with changes to gravity and alternating loads. Theoretical and experimental research has been carried out on nonsteady processes of cooling liquid-fuel rocket engines before starting work to exclude gravitation in cryogenic pumps of turbo pump units used when creating space rocket systems and a wide category of liquid-fuel rocket engines using environmentally friendly cryogenic fuel components.
As part of the European club, Russia-EU Energy and Geopolitics, of which Valery Kostyuk is permanent co-chair and member of the organising committee, annual forums are held on energy relations between Europe and Russia, including Europe’s energy security strategy, city power supply and security, consequences of the economic crisis on global oil and gas markets and alternative energy and the environment. Materials for the main resolutions for the energy strategy strategies of the EU and Russia are compiled and presented in the monograph Energy and Geopolitics which was published in 2011.
Valery Kostyuk has published 140 scientific papers including 11 monographs.
- In 1996 he was appointed first deputy chairman of the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Science and Technology and first deputy minister for science and technology.
- In 1997 he was elected as RAS academician for the Department of energy, machine building, engineering and management processes.
- Since 2001 he has been chief scientific secretary of the RAS Presidium.