BURDIN

FRANCE (see also List of Individuals)

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19.3.1788 Lepin/F - 12.11.1873 Clermont/F

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Claude Burdin graduated from Ecole Poly- technique in 1810 to continue at Ecole des Mines in Moutiers. He passed then his entire career with the French Mining Corps in Clermont. He was also a professor at Ecole des Mineurs until retirement in 1848. Besides his known contributions to turbine design, he published various papers on the momentum theorem, and on hot air machines in mechanical engineering. Burdin was a chief engineer in the Mining Corps and was elected Corresponding Member of Académie des Sciences, Paris, in 1842.

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Burdin may be considered the promoter and the first designer of hydraulic turbines. Despite Euler and Johann Andreas Segner (1707-1774) had proposed reaction turbines, their industrial application was introduced by Burdin. His 1824 paper includes the basis of modern turbines, with 67% efficiency of the first model design presented in 1825. The final turbine design was introduced by Burdin's student Benoît Fourneyron (1802-1867) at Ecole des Mines in St. Etienne. In contrast to Burdin, he added variable pitch vanes to account for variable discharge. Burdin's paper was declined by the French Society for the Encouragement of National Industries, whereas Fourneyron was awarded in 1833 for the impact mainly to mining engineering. Burdin's 1815 paper contains the fundamentals of hydraulic machinery, according to which half of the energy acquired or lost during a certain period is equal to the positive or negative work of the motor and the resisting effect, including mechanical losses. When this paper was published, the notions of work and energy were not yet known. In his 1824 paper submitted to the Académie, Burdin used this principle and applied in to turbines. The review committee proposed to Burdin continuation of research.

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_{Belhoste, B., Belhoste, J.-F., Benoît, S., Cartier, C., Dufresne, G., Emptoz, G. (1990). Le moteur hydraulique en France au 19e siècle. Cahiers d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences 29.}

_{Burdin, C. (1815). Considérations générales sur les machines en mouvement. Journal des Mines 38: 319-346.}

_{Burdin, C. (1828). Note sur une turbine hydraulique à réaction. Annales des Mines Série 2 3: 517.}

_{Burdin, C. (1833). Turbine hydraulique à axe verticale et à évacuation alternative, qui a été appliquée aux moulins de Pont-Gibaud, Dôme. Annales des Mines Série 3 3: 84-92.}

_{Fourneyron, B. (1831). Mémoire sur le calcul de l'effet par les roues à augets en-dessus et de côté, ou méthode simple et facile. Bulletin de la Société Industrielle Mulhouse 4: 1-73. Pouret, C. (2006). Claude Burdin. Personal communication. Académie des Sciences: Paris. P}

_{Tournaire, M. (1874). Notice sur les travaux de M. Burdin. Annales des Mines Série 7 5.}