The Institute of Thermal Physics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ITP UB RAS) was created in accordance with the decree of the Presidium of the Ural Branch of RAN N 2-4 of 1 February 1988 and is a successor of the Department of Power Engineering and Automatics of the Ural Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences organized by the decree of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences N 89 of 27 February 1959. In 1968 by the decree of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences N 624 the Department of Power Engineering and Automatics was given the name the Department of Physico-Technical Problems of Energetics. The main lines of investigations of the Department created were concentrated on the study of magnetohydrodynamic actions on liquid conducting media, the development of magnetohydrodynamic electric power stations and pulsating-field pumps for pumping liquid metals.

In 1972 Doctor of Physics and Mathematics professor Vladimir Pavlovich Skripov became the head of the Department of Physico-Technical Problems of Energetics. He managed to attract to scientific investigations graduates of the Physico-Technical Faculty of the Ural Polytechnical Institute and formed a Ural school of thermophysicists. The main investigations were concentrated on the study of thermophysical properties of metastable liquids, the kinetics of phase transitions, processes with the participation of metastable phases. In these years experimental methods were developed and setups were created for studying the kinetics of boiling-up and crystallization of metastable liquids. The temperature and pressure dependence of the rate of formation of evaporation centres was investigated for a great number of liquids of different nature (cryogenic liquids, solutions, polymers, chemically reacting systems). A study was made of the effects of initiating the boiling-up of a superheated liquid by ionizing irradiation, acoustic fields, impurities. The existence of shock regime of evaporation, barocapillary instability of superheated liquids, explosive nucleation in supercooled liquids was established. A complex of investigations of thermophysical properties of superheated liquids was performed. With time the school became the acknowledged leader in studying metastable phase states.

Along with the traditional work investigations were initiated in the area of high-temperature thermal physics and two-phase heat-transfer devices with capillary pumping of a working fluid. Systems investigations were pursued in power engineering and power saving. The investigations of nonequilibrium processes were continued, the generation of intense flicker noise was discovered during the heat exchange of superconducting films with a liquid heat-transfer agent.

The Institute takes part in the fulfilment of programs of basic research of the Presidium of RAN and the Department of Power Engineering, Mechanics, Mechanical Engineering and Control Processes of RAN, integration projects with the Siberian and the Far Eastern Department of RAN.

At present the Institute includes five laboratories: Lab of phase transitions and nonequilibrium processes, Lab of cryogenics and energetics, Lab of short-time processes and boiling physics, Lab of high-temperature measurements, Lab of heat-transfer devices. There are 39 researchers: one corresponding member of RAS, 10 doctors and 21 candidates of science.

The main areas of the Institute activity:

• nonequilibrium boiling and condensation processes of energy and heat carriers;

• thermophysical properties of substances in stable and metastable phase states;

• two-phase heat transfer devices, loop heat pipes.

Some applied projects have been performed at the Institute.

In co-operation with the joint-stock companies “Uralteploelectroproect” and “Uraltekhenergo” the Institute developed gas-turbine expansive stations using the excessive pressure of natural gas for generating electric power. Since 2002 such an experimental industrial installation has been in operation at the Middle-Ural electric thermal power station (the joint-stock company “Sverdlovenergo”).

The Institute has developed MHD-pumps for pumping liquid metals, highly efficient heat-transfer devices - loop heat pipes - used in thermoregulation systems of spacecraft “Obzor”, “Mars-96”, etc.

On the basis of the results obtained by the group of systems investigations recommendations were given to the RF Security Council for annual analytic papers (1999-2002).

In recent years scientific co-operation with Universities of the USA, Germany and Taiwan has been progressing successfully. A number of contracts have been concluded and fulfilled with foreign organizations: the International Science and Technology Centre, the Chinese Academy of Space Technologies, the corporation TRW (USA), the corporation MBDA (France), the corporation Airbus (Germany).

The Institute conducted five Russian Conferences on the physics of metastable phase states, and in 2002 an International Heat Pipe Conference with the participation of representatives of 21 countries.

The scientific workers of the Institute have published 12 monographs, every year about 30 scientific papers are published in Russian and foreign journals.