Claude Burdin (; 19 March 1788 – 12 November 1873) was a French

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

. Born in Lépin-le-Lac,

Savoie Savoie (; Arpitan: ''Savouè'' or ''Savouè-d'Avâl''; English: ''Savoy'' ) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Southeastern France. Located in the French Alps, its prefecture is Chambéry. In 2019, Savoie had a population o ...

, when it was known as the

Duchy of Savoy The Duchy of Savoy (; ) was a territorial entity of the Savoyard state that existed from 1416 until 1847 and was a possession of the House of Savoy. It was created when Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, raised the County of Savoy into a duchy f ...

, he was professor at the school of mines,

École nationale supérieure des mines de Saint-Étienne École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

, in

Saint-Étienne Saint-Étienne (; Franco-Provençal: ''Sant-Etiève''), also written St. Etienne, is a city and the prefecture of the Loire département, in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regi ...

. He became a French citizen on 4 June 1817. He proposed the concept and developed the term ''

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced can be used for generating electrical ...

'' from the Greek word τύρβη, meaning "whirling" or a "vortex".

Biography

Burdin was born on 19 March 1788 in the Duchy of Savoy. He was part of the class 1807 of the

École polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

and the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris. He became a professor at the École nationale supérieure des mines de Saint-Étienne. Burdin spent most of his engineering career in

Clermont-Ferrand Clermont-Ferrand (, , ; or simply ; ) is a city and Communes of France, commune of France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regions of France, region, with a population of 147,284 (2020). Its metropolitan area () had 504,157 inhabitants at the 2018 ...

. In 1822, Burdin submitted his memo "Des turbines hydrauliques ou machines rotatoires à grande vitesse" (Hydraulic turbines or high-speed rotary machines) to the Académie royale des sciences in Paris. However, it was not until 1824 that a committee of the Académie (composed of Prony, Dupin, and Girard) reported favorably on Burdin's memo. Working on water wheels, he was the promoter and creator of the first modern

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 ...

, an invention which was perfected by his pupil in Saint-Étienne, Benoît Fourneyron. This turbine - with a vertical axis - was installed in 1825 in a mill located in Pontgibaud; it had an energy efficiency of 67%. He became a corresponding member of the Académie de Savoie on 4 July 1834 and of the

Académie des sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

in 1842.

References

Sources

External links

* Extract of "Le corps des mines aux XIX^e et au XX^e siècles", 1788 births 1873 deaths École Polytechnique alumni French engineers Members of the French Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Legion of Honour People from the Kingdom of Sardinia {{France-engineer-stub