Wang Dezhao

AWARDEE OF PHYSICS PRIZE

WANG DEZHAO

Abstract

Professor Wang Dezhao,member (academician) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,(CAS) was director of the Institute of Acoustics (IOA,CAS) for about 20 years.He was also chief of the IOA Research Group of Underwater Acoustic Propagation.Since most of the coastal zones in China are shallow water,Wang and his group paid much attention to the research on Shallow-water Acoustics and carried out in-depth study on the topic of “Shallow-water Sound Fields”,which won the National Natural Science Award,Second Class in 1982 and 1989,respectively.Thanks to Wangs contribution,the research work on “Shallow-water Sound Fields” has attained the advanced level and the scientific achievements have been recognized and cited by the foreign scientists of underwater acoustics.(For example,their papers on the mode filtering of sound fields were adopted by MIT as the reference materials for the doctoral courses.Dr. C. S. Clay,the American scientist of underwater acoustics indicated in his report to his leader that,there were two research centers of shallow-water acoustics in the world:one was in Marseilles,France,and another was in Beijing,China).
Under the leadership of Wang,a series of advanced defense and civil underwater sound systems were developed in IOA and won many nation-level achievement awards.One of the most important achievements is the Bottom-Fixed Underwater Acoustic Surveillance System,designed,developed and manufactured by Wang and his student Hou Ziqiang et al.
The internal waves have great influence on the performance of sonar system.However,effects of internal wave on the underwater sound propagation were not systematically studied in the world.Wang and his student Gao Tianfu et al studied this topic deeply and presented their results in the international meetings on acoustics and received much attention.This work won the CAS Prize for Important Scientific and Technological Achievements,Second Class in 1982,in which Wang was listed as the first leading person.
Wang Dezhao is the founder of the national defense underwater acoustics of China.Under his training and education,generations of students and scientific workers have grown up and become high level experts of underwater acoustics.Many of them have won reputation in the international circles (among them there are two Academicians,and many supervisors of doctoral students and chiefs of research establishments).