Zhang Rehe

AWARDEE OF PHYSICS PRIZE

ZHANG RENHE

Zhang Renhe, an underwater acoustics physicist, was born in Chongqing on 5 October, 1936. He graduated from Physics Department of Peking University in 1958, worked in Institute of Electronics of Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) in Beijing, and began his underwater acoustics study under the supervision of Prof. Wang Dezhao. During 1959-1978 he worked in Hainan Acoustics Laboratory in Hainan Island, at the end of 1978 he went back to Beijing and worked in Institute of Acoustics of CAS, from 1980 to 1990 he worked in Shanghai Acoustics Laboratory in Shanghai, at the beginning of 1990 he returned to Beijing, worked again in Institute of Acoustics and was appointed as the director of the State Key Laboratory of Acoustics. Now he is the chairman of Academic Council of the State Key Laboratory of Acoustics.
Zhang was elected the academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991.
Working on underwater acoustics for more than 40 years, he participated in over hundred of at-sea experiments in the East China Sea, South China Sea and Yellow Sea.  As the chief scientist he conducted China-US and China-Russia joint at-sea experiments four times during 1990-2001. He developed the normal mode theory of acoustic fields in shallow water, published the concise formulas of mode attenuation and group velocity in 1960's. Since then he obtained many important results of sound propagation, multipath structure of pulse waveform, spatial coherence of sound field, and acoustic reverberation in shallow water and in the deep sea.
Zhang and collaborators were awarded the Second Class National Prize of Natural Sciences in 1982 and the First Class CAS Prize of Natural Sciences in 1989.