80th Anniversary of the journal chemical and oil-gas engineering

Abstract

creative inspiration has been a difficult path. The first issue of the journal was published in July 1932 in Kharkov as the industrial-technical, scientific and technico-economic journal Khimicheskoe Mashinostroenie (Chemical Engineering). This was a time of tempestuous development of the national economy and industry of the country. The developing chemical industry at that time was acutely in need of increasing production volumes of chemical equipment to which establishments of the All-Union Association of Sugar and Chemical Engineering (VOSKhIM) located in Ukraine, for which the journal Chemical Engineering became the printing organ, contributed to a great extent. In endeavoring to publish the new edition, the VOSKhIM placed before the journal the task of assisting in the technical progress of chemical engineering, and raising the technical level of production and manufactured products. The following was emphasized in the journal’s program: “The 1932 Plan, and, in particular, perspective rough drafts for the second five-year plan places before chemical engineering a number of completely new, and diverse problems: organization of new productions, expansion and reconstruction of the current outdated production base, rationalization of production, and hence, the need for broad planning, establishment of types and forms of chemical equipment and the best designs, replacement of obsolete production methods by new ones, etc.” Papers devoted to studies of the development of new machines and equipment for chemical productions, scientific researches, and laboratory investigations had even been published in the first issue of the journal. The papers, among other things, touched upon effective processes for evaporators and heat exchangers, reactors, and pulverizing-grinding machines; analysis of welded joints in equipment; production problems in the fabrication of compressor components, foundry production, and a number of other problems of chemical engineering. The scientific-technical leaning of publications of the journal, the publication of which was soon transferred to Moscow, has been retained over the entire path of its publication, gaining it the respect of the scientific and engineering community. In the pre-war years, the journal was virtually the only source of information on scientific-technical achievements in chemical engineering. The publications, which shed light on questions concerning the development of science and engineering, contributed to practical studies involving the development and mastering of new highly productive equipment, expansion of the list of articles produced, and improvement of the technical equipment of businesses in the field. In the paper “Chemical engineering after 10 years,” which was published in the April edition of the journal in 1940, significant advancements were highlighted both in the expansion of the manufacture of chemical-production equipment and the mastering of many new machines and equipment. Even more critical problems involving chemical engineering surfaced in the post-war years when the country had embarked on a grandiose plan for restoration of the national economy. Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Vol. 48, Nos. 7–8, November, 2012 (Russian Original Nos. 7–8, July–August, 2012)