Metallurgical Education

a branch of technical education whose goal is the training of various types of engineers and technicians in the smelting of ferrous and nonferrous metals and alloys, pressure working, metal science, metal physics, heat treatment, the foundry industry, and the economics and organization of metallurgical plants.

The history and development of metallurgical education are closely associated with mining education. In Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries, skilled workers and master metallurgists were trained in industrial mining schools and mining academies. The highest degree of training (corresponding to the level of technician) was reached at the Urals Mining Academy, the industrial mining department of the Perm’ Realschule, the Nizhnii Tagil Industrial Mining Academy, the Dombrovskii Mining Academy, and the Poliakov Mining Academy in Gorlovka.

A higher level of metallurgical education emerged in Russia in the second half of the 18th century with the founding in 1773 of the St. Petersburg Higher Mining Academy, later renamed the St. Petersburg Mining Institute. For a century it remained the only higher educational institution of mining and metallurgy in Russia. Many eminent scientists graduated from the institute, among them P. P. Anosov, N. A. Kurnakov, and M. A. Pavlov, who contributed greatly to the development of metallurgy in Russia. In 1834 the instructors of the institute founded the St. Petersburg School of Mines to provide training for metallurgists (D. K. Chernov, a graduate of the school, later became the founder of metal science).

Metallurgy was first taught at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, in a course entitled Guidelines for Instructors of Chemistry, which treated metallurgy as a constituent branch of chemistry. In 1804, metallurgy came to be regarded as an independent discipline. Later, separate mining and industrial divisions were established at the institute (courses in physical chemistry and metallurgy were given in the industrial division, which provided a higher level of metallurgical education). New specialized training institutes were founded in southern Russia with the development of the mining industry in that area. The Higher Mining Academy, which offered courses in metallurgy, was established in Ekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk) in 1899; in 1921 it was reorganized as the Artem Mining Institute, from which the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute was founded in 1930. A polytechnic institute, at which engineers were trained in metallurgy, was founded in Kiev in 1898.

In the early 20th century, the Tomsk Technological Institute (1900), the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute (1902), and the Novocherkassk Polytechnic Institute (1907) were founded; metallurgists were also trained at these institutions. A wellknown school of metallurgy took shape at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, among whose instructors were the eminent metallurgists A. A. Baikov, M. A. Pavlov, and V. E. Grum-Grzhimailo.

Metallurgy and metallurgical education experienced intense development after the October Revolution of 1917. The Moscow Mining Academy, which had a department of metallurgy, was founded in 1918; in 1930 its departments became the basis for the founding of the Moscow Institute of Steel (now the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys) and the Moscow Institute of Nonferrous Metals and Gold.

The industrialization of the USSR was accompanied by the emergence of various institutes that provided training for metallurgists; among them were the Siberian Metallurgical Institute (in Novokuznetsk, 1930), the Mariupol’ (now Zhdanov) Metallurgical Institute (1930), the Moscow Evening Metallurgical Institute (1931), the Northern Caucasus Mining and Metallurgical Institute (in Ordzhonikidze, 1931), and the Magnitogorsk Mining and Metallurgical Institute (1932), as well as several metallurgical technicums.

The construction of large metallurgical plants with modern equipment necessitated not only an increase in the number of skilled engineering personnel but also a higher level of technical training. In 1937 the training programs offered at metallurgical institutes were revised, and three basic fields of specialization were established: (1) ferrous metallurgy (blast-furnace, steelsmelting, and foundry processes), (2) pressure working and heat treatment of metals (rolling, forging, stamping, and heat treatment), (3) mechanical equipment in metallurgical shops. Among the new disciplines that were made part of the training program were the theory of metallurgical processes, metallurgical furnaces, refractory materials, metallurgy of cast iron and steel, pressure working of metals, roentgenography and testing of metals, economics of metallurgy, and safety engineering.

The modern system of metallurgical education in the USSR is based on the organic combination of theoretical instruction and practical training. The theoretical foundation of metallurgical education consists of physics, mathematics, chemistry, theoretical and applied mechanics, metal science, the theory of metallurgical processes, electronics, and economics. All students study Marxist-Leninist theory. Special disciplines are later introduced into the training programs of senior students to prepare them for their fields of specialization.

In response to the demands of the scientific and technical revolution and to the new tasks of communist construction, higher educational institutes have expanded the basic science curriculum to include new courses, such as scientific organization of labor, automatic control systems, electronic computers and their practical application in metallurgy, and industrial psychology. Among the basic methods used in the education of specialists are the attraction of large numbers of students to scientific research work and the introduction of practical scientific research training.

Modern metallurgical education has a structured specialization program and reflects the current status of the industry and science of metallurgy. Among the new fields of specialization that have been introduced to meet the demands of the national economy, science, and technology are metal physics, physicochemical analysis of metallurgical processes, automation and integrated mechanization of the metallurgical industry, the manufacture of pure metals and semiconductor materials, cybernetics of metallurgy, and physical methods of dust separation and gas trapping in metallurgical plants. The period of study in higher educational institutions or departments of metallurgy is five to 5 1/2 years.

In 1973, training for metallurgical engineers was being offered at metallurgical and mining-metallurgical institutes in Moscow, Dnepropetrovsk, Zhdanov, Krasnoiarsk, Magnitogorsk, Ordzhonikidze, and Novokuznetsk; at the Kommunarsk Mining and Metallurgical Institute (founded in 1958 in Kommunarsk, Voroshilovgrad Oblast); and at the Leningrad Mining Institute; in the metallurgy departments of the Leningrad, Urals (Sverdlovsk), Cheliabinsk, Irkutsk, Kiev, Donetsk, Kazakh (Alma-Ata), Karaganda, Georgian (Tbilisi), and Lipetsk Polytechnical Institutes; at the Dneprodzerzhinsk Industrial Institute (most of these technical schools have day, evening, and correspondence departments); the Noril’sk and Kramatorsk evening industrial institutes; at the All-Union (Moscow), Northwestern (Leningrad), and Ukrainian (Kharkov) correspondence polytechnical institutes; at the higher technical training school at the Karaganda Metallurgical Combine (Temirtau); and at the Moscow Evening Metallurgical Institute.

A wide range of specializations is offered in training programs for metallurgist-technicians in the USSR at metallurgical and mining-metallurgical technicums in Sverdlovsk, Pervoural’sk, Serov, Moscow, Cheliabinsk, Zlatoust, Dneprodzerzhinsk, Nikopol’, Dnepropetrovsk, Krivoi Rog, Enakievo, Makeevka, and Zaporozh’e, as well as the industrial technicums in Novokuznetsk, Zlatoust, and Dnepropetrovsk. The period of study is four years.

Enrollments in specialized fields of metallurgy for the 1972–73 academic year were 54,500 in higher educational institutions and 48,500 in technicums; 11,600 new students were admitted to higher educational institutions, and 14,900, to technicums. Graduating classes were 8,000 and 11,200 students, respectively. Teaching and scientific personnel study in graduate programs, which are being offered at more than 30 metallurgical, miningmetallurgical, polytechnical, industrial, and scientific research institutes. The Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute, and the G. I. Nosov Metallurgical Institute in Magnitogorsk accept both doctoral and candidates’ dissertations for defense; the Moscow evening institute and the Northern Caucasus and Sergo Ordzhonikidze Siberian institutes accept only candidates’ dissertations. Skilled workers for the metallurgy industry (furnacemen, steelmakers’ assistants, rollers, and melters) are trained at vocational schools.

Among the eminent Soviet scientists who have contributed greatly to the development of metallurgy and metallurgical education are I. P. Bardin, B. V. Stark, M. M. Karnaukhov, A. N. Vel’skii, A. M. Samarin, V. P. Eliutin, and A. A. Bochvar.

In other socialist countries, metallurgists are trained at institutions such as the Freiberg Mining Academy and the Dresden Technical University in the German Democratic Republic, the Kraków Mining and Metallurgical Academy and the Warsaw and Poznari polytechnic institutes in Poland, the State College of Mining and Metallurgy (Ostrava) and the Technical University (Kosice) in Czechoslovakia, the Budapest Polytechnic Institute in Hungary, and the Sofia Higher Institute of Chemical Technology in Bulgaria.

In capitalist countries, metallurgical education is usually offered at engineering schools or in the metallurgy departments of universities. The most important institutes are as follows: USA —Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge), Carnegie Institute of Technology (Pittsburgh), and the metallurgy departments and colleges of Harvard University, New York University, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago; Great Britain—the metallurgy departments and colleges of Cambridge University and the Universities of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield; Federal Republic of Germany—the Mining Academy in Clausthal and the technical colleges in Aachen, Cologne, and Hamburg; France—the Central Scientific Research Institutes of Metallurgy in Paris and Saint-Etienne and the National College of Electrochemistry and Electrometallurgy in Grenoble. Among the developing countries, programs in metallurgy are offered at the Bombay, Kharagpur, and Kanpur technological institutes, the Bengal College of Engineering, and the engineering colleges in Poona and Varanasi in India; the Rangoon Technological Institute in Burma; the University of Cairo and al-Tabbin Metallurgical Institute in the Arab Republic of Egypt, and the Annab Mining and Metallurgical Institute in Algeria.