Ivan Bubnov

After completing his secondary education, he entered the School of Naval Engineering and completed his studies there successfully in 1891; in 1896 Bubnov graduated from the Naval Academy, where in 1910 he was appointed full professor. From 1903 to 1913 he taught at the St.Petersburg Polytechnic Institute – from 1909 onwards as full professor. The year 1911 saw Bubnov formulate the general calculus of variations which outside Russia in particular is known as the Galerkin Method; Bubnov published his method in 1913 in the compendium of the St.Petersburg Institute of Engineers of Ways of Communication (Bubnov-Galerkin Method). Besides his university posts, he was also involved in projects for warships and submarines for the St.Petersburg naval harbour and the Baltic shipbuilding yard. From 1908 to 1914 Bubnov was in charge of the navy’s Shipbuilding Testing Institute as successor to A. N. Krylov. He was promoted to major-general in 1912 and awarded the Order of the Holy Stanislav, 1st class, in 1915. Bubnov died of typhoid.

Main contributions to structural analysis:

Otzyv o sochinenii professora Timoshenko “Ob ustoichivosti uprugikh sistem”, udostoennom premii D. I. Zhuravskogo (appraisal of Prof. Timoshenko’s Werk “On the stability of elastic systems”, which was awarded the D. I. Zhuravsky Prize) [1913]; Stroitel’naya mekhanika korablya (mechanics of shipbuilding) [1912–1914]; Trudy po teorii plastin (works on plate theory) [1953]; Izbrannye trudy (selected works) [1956]

Source: Kurrer, Karl-Eugen The History of the Theory of Structures, Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH, Berlin (Deutschland), ISBN 3-433-01838-3, 2008; p. 720