River Mechanic — Jean-Baptiste-Charles-Joseph Bélanger
Jean-Baptiste-Charles-Joseph Bélanger studied the mechanics of water flowing in rivers and canals. He began his career in the 1820s as an engineer building canals. Later, Bélanger taught engineering at the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, and the Ecole Polytechnique. Gustave Eiffel was one of his students at the Ecole Centrale. Bélanger’s courses on mechanics attracted a broad following among both his students and his contemporaries, which included Gaspard Coriolis, Antoine Polonceau, Henri Darcy, and Ernst Mach, and his lectures were widely adopted as the standard introductory course mechanics.
The complex behavior of flowing water has fascinated scientists, engineers, kayakers, and canoeists at least since the time of Leonardo DaVinci. Bélanger was the first to describe the mechanics of the phenomenon responsible that creates standing waves in fast-flowing rivers and at the downstream end of spillways. This phenomenon is known as a hydraulic jump. Bélanger’s work on the mechanics of water flow also includes investigations into conditions of critical flow over a broadcrested weir, a structure used by engineers to regulate flows and levels in rivers and canals, and developing equations to describe gradually varying flow in channels. The results of Bélanger’s work are used by engineers today to design hydraulics works and forecast floods.
Jean-Baptiste-Charles-Joseph Bélanger is one of the 72 scientists and engineers named on the Eiffel Tower.
