Background
Vitaly Dmitrievich Shafranov was born in the village of Mordvinovo in Ryazan region in 1929. During the World World War II, Schafranov attended the school and worked together with his father building roads.
Vitaly Dmitrievich Shafranov was born in the village of Mordvinovo in Ryazan region in 1929. During the World World War II, Schafranov attended the school and worked together with his father building roads.
From 1946, Schafranov studied at the Physics Department of the Moscow State University.
In 1943 he got his first national award at the age 14. After graduating in 1951, he started to work with nuclear fusion in the Theory Department headed by Mikhail Aleksandrovich Leontovich at LIPAN (Laboratory of Measuring Instruments of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Academy of Sciences) as today"s Russian Research Centre "Kurchatov Institute" was known at the time. He examined tokamaks stability and gave some parameter estimation for Soviet tokamak experiments.
He also dealt with shock waves in plasmas and interaction of electromagnetic waves with plasmas.
Later, he worked intensively on stellarators. In 1981 he became the successor of Leontovich as head of the Theory Department of Nuclear Fusion at the Kurchatov Institute.
Concepts such as the Shafranov shift (1959), the Kruskal-Shafranov stability criterion and limit value and the Graduate-Shafranov equation (1957) are named after him. In 1972, he suggested with Lev Artsimovich a tokamak with Doctorate-shaped cross-section.
Since 1983 he was editor of Plasma Physics Reports (Fizika Plasmy).
From the death of Boris Kadomtsev to his death, he served as the editor of the Reviews of Plasma Physics collection. A. V. South. volunteer L. East. Doctorate. A. V. Doctorate. V. Doctorate.
Russian Academy of Sciences. Academy of Sciences of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics]
In 1981 he became a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and full member of the Academy in 1997.