Physicist who pioneered the Soviet nuclear navy and nuclear power, brought down by Chernobyl
After Chernobyl, Alexandrov said: 'To manage such an institute and the Academy at the same time was extremely difficult. In the end it ended sadly. And when the Chernobyl accident happened, I believe that from that time both my life began to end, and my creative life.'
The physicist who succeeded Kurchatov as the top leader of Soviet nuclear research. During World War II he co-developed the ship degaussing system with Kurchatov, and after Kurchatov's death in 1960 he directed the Kurchatov Institute for 28 years. Under his leadership the nuclear icebreakers Lenin, Arktika and Sibir and the USSR's first nuclear submarines were built; he was the scientific supervisor for both the RBMK and VVER reactor designs. He served as President of the Academy of Sciences from 1975, but the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, in which the RBMK reactor he had championed exploded, brought his scientific life to an end. Three-time Hero of Socialist Labour, recipient of four Stalin Prizes and the Lenin Prize.
Career Timeline
- 1930–1941Senior researcher at LFTI, developed statistical theory of strength and polymer physics (Doctor of Sciences, 1941)
- 1941–1943Co-developed the 'LFTI system' of ship degaussing with Kurchatov; deployed on Black Sea, Baltic and Northern Fleets
- 1943–1946Deputy to Kurchatov at Laboratory No. 2 (atomic bomb project)
- 1946–1955Director of the Institute for Physical Problems (replacing Kapitsa)
- 1955–1960Deputy director of the Institute of Atomic Energy (IAE)
- 1960–1988Director of IAE / Kurchatov Institute; chief of naval nuclear propulsion, icebreakers, nuclear submarines, and both reactor lines
- 1975–1986President of the USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1966–1989Member of the CPSU Central Committee
Related historical events
- 1943–1949The Soviet Atomic ProjectDeputy to Kurchatov at Laboratory No. 2 (atomic bomb project)
- 1986The Chernobyl DisasterScientific supervisor of the RBMK reactorAs director of the Kurchatov Institute and President of the Academy of Sciences, he was the scientific supervisor of the RBMK reactor design. Chernobyl was a personal tragedy for him; he stepped down as President of the Academy of Sciences in October 1986 after the disaster.
Chernobyl and the RBMK
Alexandrov was the 'scientific supervisor' (научный руководитель) of the RBMK reactor programme and personally filed the top-secret invention patent for the RBMK design under his own name. The RBMK, a high-power channel-type reactor using graphite moderation and light-water cooling, was easier to manufacture and more powerful than the VVER, earning it the title of the Soviet Union's 'national reactor.' But it carried fatal flaws: a dangerously positive void coefficient and a 'positive scram effect' in its control rods.
From as early as 1965, researchers within the Kurchatov Institute itself, Zhezerun, Volkov, Ivanov, and others, repeatedly warned of the RBMK's nuclear safety hazards. Alexandrov suppressed their reports and blocked their careers. When Leningrad NPP Unit 1 went online in 1975, the positive void coefficient made the reactor demonstrably unstable; partial core meltdowns occurred at Leningrad in 1975 and at Chernobyl Unit 1 in 1982, both covered up as state secrets. Alexandrov and chief designer Nikolai Dollezhal never investigated the problem deeply, and the RBMK operating manuals contained no analysis of the void coefficient.
When Chernobyl Unit 4 exploded on 26 April 1986, Alexandrov initially blamed operator error. 'You drive a car, turn the wheel the wrong way: an accident! Is the motor to blame? Or the designer?' he argued, deflecting responsibility onto Dollezhal. But Dollezhal late in life conceded that a reactor with such a large positive reactivity effect 'cannot be controlled.' A post-accident investigation by the USSR State Committee for Nuclear Safety concluded that the RBMK 'lacked any normal protection system whatsoever.'
Even so, Alexandrov insisted that abandoning nuclear power would be a catastrophe and pushed for continued operation of improved RBMK units. Indeed, surviving RBMK reactors were retrofitted with void coefficient correction, upgraded control rods, and revised procedures, going on to operate safely for over thirty more years. But for Alexandrov personally, Chernobyl was an irreversible end. In his 1992 memoirs he wrote: 'Chernobyl is a tragedy of my life too. From that moment my life began to end, and my creative life.' In October 1986 he resigned the Academy presidency he had held for eleven years; in 1988 he stepped down as director of the Kurchatov Institute.