Nikolai Nikolaevich Benardos

Nikolai Nikolaevich Benardos — a Russian engineer, the inventor of electric arc welding and spot and seam contact welding. He was born in the village of Benardosovka in the Kherson Governorate into a family with strong military traditions. He received a home education. From childhood he showed an interest in trades, particularly locksmithing and blacksmithing. At his father's insistence he entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University and made his first known invention — a silver dental filling. In 1866 he left medicine and enrolled in the Petrovskaya Agricultural and Forestry Academy in Moscow. After three years of study he left the academy and devoted himself entirely to inventive work.

By 1892 Benardos had developed a method of electric welding using carbon and metal electrodes. He also proposed a number of innovative solutions: welding with alternating current, welding in a gas jet, welding with an inclined electrode, the use of various fluxes and a closed arc. Benardos made a significant contribution to the mechanization and automation of the welding process. His achievements were recognized at the All-Russian Electrical Exhibition of 1892 in Saint Petersburg, where he received a gold medal from the Russian Technical Society. Nikolai Nikolaevich Benardos died in 1905 in Fastiv.