Header
[ HOME ]

Page Updated: 14-Sep-2006
SPS Homepage > News 2003 > Article

Examples of Grants awarded to Ukrainian scientists through the
NATO Science Programme

  • Over €2 million is projected for Ukraine in support of the 16 Science for Peace projects currently underway. One of these aims to improve the life-time of the coatings of industrial gas turbine blades, with considerable financial savings envisaged for the industrial partners involved. Dr. Pavel Krukovsky, of the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Kyiv, is the Ukrainian co-director of this project, collaborating with colleagues in Germany and Russia. Two Science for Peace projects underway at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Institute for Problems in Materials Sciences, which the Science Committee will visit while in Kyiv, deal with New Ceramic Materials, and New Aluminium Alloys. Prof. V. Skorokhod is the Co-Director of the Ceramic Materials project, which aims to develop new technology to create advanced ceramic materials used in the cutting tools industry. Dr. A. Krajnikov is the co-director of the second project which aims to obviate Ukraine's current need to import aluminium powders and alloys, by overcoming obstacles such as high risk of explosion, in developing new water atomisation rapid solidification technology to produce new high-performance aluminium-based alloys.

  • Among the eight NATO scientific meetings scheduled to be held in Ukraine in 2003 is one on the topic of Metallic Materials with High Structural Efficiency to take place in Kyiv in September. This workshop will focus on latest developments in methods of increasing the specific strength and stiffness of metallic materials, which is a requirement of, for example, the aerospace industry, as it is the most pervasive material characteristic in the design of aerospace systems. The workshop co-directors are Prof. Sergiy Firstov, Frantzevych Institute for Problems of Materials Science, Kyiv, and Dr. Oleg Senkov, Dayton, Ohio, USA

  • Scientific Fundamentals for the Lifetime Extension of Reactor Pressure Vessels, was the subject of a NATO workshop which took place in Kyiv in April 2002. As Nuclear Power Plants approach the end of their operating licenses one option is to extend their service lifetime, but their life is limited because of problems of irradiation embrittlement of the reactor pressure vessel. The workshop shared experience of the embrittlement studies underway in many countries to learn from the solutions being achieved by others to the scientific and technical issues. The service life of about 50 nuclear reactors currently working worldwide will expire by the year 2005, among which are those of 11 Nuclear Power Plants in Ukraine. This Kyiv workshop was a particularly timely exercise, and a book on the workshop is in preparation.

  • An example of the Collaborative Linkage Grants awarded is one dealing with Development of a Sustainable Human Development Indicator for Local Communities. The project is being undertaken in the light of the UNDP's Human Development Index, which does not currently take into account the environmental effects of socio-economic development. This project will provide a measure of human development that takes into account the extent to which the activities undertaken for socio-economic improvement have been environment-friendly. Prof. Leonid Melnik of the Sumy State University is the Ukrainian co-director of the project, which is being undertaken in collaboration with colleagues in the United Kingdom and Belgium.

top 

Back to
Homepage