BOULÉ

FRANCE (see also List of Individuals)

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11.7.1830 Paris/F - 15.11.1911 Provins/F

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The professional career of Auguste Boulé was determined by the Seine River, a water course that he studied from the hydrologic, the hydraulic and the morphologic points of view. After completion of education at Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées in 1854, Boulé joined in 1856 the navigation service of Seine River in Melun. At this time his principal Chanoine worked on the canalization of the river by using twelve mobile barrages between the confluence of River Yonne in Montereau and Port-à-l'Anglais close to Paris. The design of such hydraulic structures was complicated by the large river discharges and floods that had to be taken into consideration. In the 1870s, the locks of Carrières-sous-Poissy and of Bougival were taken into service, of which the latter was 220 m long and 17 m wide.

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Boulé is particularly known for an improved design of the mobile barrage in rivers. These were previously introduced by the engineer Chanoine metioned above, but the axis of rotation of his design was too low such that its hydraulic characteristics had a poor performance. From 1868, Boulé developed this hydraulic element and elaborated its perfection. The design was first inserted in Port-à-l'Anglais for a backwater elevation of 4 m and a hydraulic drop of 3 m. The 1873 paper in the Annales was awarded a Gold Medal. Two years later, Boulé improved the mobile barrage of Charles Poirée (1785-1873) by using simply wooden boards of which the hydraulic principle may be described with a sloping gate. The design is described in the 1876 paper, which was again awarded. The basic idea of Boulé was a surface regulation of water courses using elements that could be simply added to the base structure.

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_{Boulé, A. (1873). Nouvelle passe navigable établie en 1870 dans le barrage de Port-à-l'Anglais, hausses mobiles supportant une retenue de 4 m. Annales Ponts Chaussées 43(2): 98-165. Boulé, A. (1876). Barrages mobiles à forte chute - Un nouveau système de barrage mobile fermé par des vannes et des fermettes. Annales des Ponts et Chaussées 46(3): 320-374. Boulé, A. (1889). Le barrage de Suresnes et la canalisation de la Seine. Annales des Ponts et Chaussées 59(2): 79-99.}

_{Boulé, A. (1890). Le but et l'utilité de la canalisation des fleuves. 3 PIANC Congress: 93-125. Boulé, A. (1891). Notice sur les travaux de canalisation des rivières en Allemagne. Annales des Ponts et Chaussées 61(3): 445-464.}

_{Lavollée, G.E.A. (1912). Notice sur Adolphe Philippe Auguste Boulé. Annales des Ponts et Chaussées 82(6): 459-468.}