Benoît Fourneyron (31 October 1802 – 31 July 1867) was a French

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

, born in

Saint-Étienne Saint-Étienne (; frp, Sant-Etiève; oc, Sant Estève, ) is a city and the prefecture of the Loire department in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Saint-Étienne is the t ...

, Loire. Fourneyron made significant contributions to the development of

water turbine A water turbine is a rotary machine that converts kinetic energy and potential energy of water into mechanical work. Water turbines were developed in the 19th century and were widely used for industrial power prior to electrical grids. Now, t ...

s. Benoît Fourneyron was educated at the

École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne , also called (literally meaning "Saint-Étienne school of mines") or simply and commonly abbreviated EMSE is a prestigious French graduate engineering school () training engineers and carrying out industry-oriented research. Its function is to ...

, a nearby engineering school that had recently opened. After he graduated in 1816, he spent the next few years in mines and

ironwork Ironwork is any weapon, artwork, utensil, or architectural feature made of iron, especially one used for decoration. There are two main types of ironwork: wrought iron and cast iron. While the use of iron dates as far back as 4000BC, it was th ...

s. Around this time, a number of French engineers—including some of Fourneyron's former teachers—were starting to apply the mathematical techniques of modern science to the ancient mechanism called the

waterwheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...

. For centuries, waterwheels had been used to convert the energy of streams into mechanical power, mostly for milling grain. But the new machines of the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

required more power, and by the 1820s there was enormous interest in making waterwheels more efficient.

Fourneyron-style turbines

Using the proposal of a former teacher (

Claude Burdin Claude Burdin (; 19 March 1788 – 12 November 1873) was a French engineer. Born in Lépin-le-Lac, Savoie, when it was known as the Duchy of Savoy, he was professor at the school of mines, École nationale supérieure des mines de Saint-� ...

) as a guide, Fourneyron built in 1827, at age of 25, his first prototype for a new type of waterwheel, called a "turbine". (The term turbine is derived from the Greek word "τύρβη" for "whirling" or a "vortex".) In Fourneyron's design, the wheel was horizontal, unlike the vertical wheels in traditional waterwheels. This turbine used two sets of blades, curved in opposite directions, to get as much power as possible from the water's motion. Fourneyron won a 6,000 franc prize offered by the French Society for the Encouragement of Industry for the development of the first commercial hydraulic turbine. Over the next decade, Fourneyron built bigger and better turbines, learning from his mistakes after each new model. By 1837, he had a turbine capable of a fantastic 2,300 rotations per minute. On that model, the turbine's wheel was only one foot in diameter, and it weighed just 40 pounds. It operated at 80 percent efficiency. Within a few years, hundreds of factories used Fourneyron-style turbines. Other countries adopted the design to power their industrial machinery, too. Immediately successful, it powered industry in continental Europe and the U.S., notably the New England textile industry. In 1895 Fourneyron turbines were installed on the U.S. side of

Niagara Falls Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, ...

to generate electric power. Fourneyron was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1861.

References

* 1802 births 1867 deaths People from Saint-Étienne Politicians from Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Moderate Republicans (France) Members of the 1848 Constituent Assembly French engineers Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences {{France-engineer-stub

Fourneyron-style turbines

See also

References