LEGENDRE

FRANCE (see also List of Individuals)

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10.11.1907 Paris/F - 26.4.1994 Paris/F

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Robert Legendre graduated in 1927 from Ecole Polytechnique and two years later from Ecole d'Application du Génie Maritime EAGM as a naval engineer. Emile Barillon (1879-1967) suggested his student to collaborate with the laboratory of Ecole du Génie Maritime in Lorient. From there Legendre joined in 1950 the Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales ONERA. He was as an armament general a Member of Association Technique Maritime et Aéronautique ATMA from 1932, a Council Member from 1958, and a vice-president from 1969. He was elected a Member of Académie des Sciences from 1969, thereby taking Barillon's seat. He passed away due to a medical intervention at age 87.

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During Legendre's stay in Lorient, his research topics were combustion, heat transfer and the circulation of water and vapor in naval machinery. These works were mainly directed to the battleship Richelieu commissioned in 1940. From then Legendre lectured at EAGM in Toulon on naval theory, hydrodynamics, gas turbines and naval machinery. It was during that time where he met Maurice Roy (1899-1985), with whom he collaborated later at ONERA and whose interest was then in airplane propulsion using reaction turbines. After 1950, Legendre investigated transonic flows with a special note to the aerodynamics of the Concorde wing under such conditions. Legendre published some three hundred papers on the rolling of boats, heat exchange in naval machinery, wing calculations in turbo machinery, aerodynamic noise, cavitation and aeroelasticity.

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_{Anonymous (1973). Robert Legendre. ONERA. Répertoire Général de la Recherche 1: 241-242.}

_{Anonymous (1995). Robert Georges Legendre. Bulletin de l'Association Technique Maritime et Aéronautique 95: 12-14. P Anonymous (2001). Legendre. Who's who in France XXe siècle: 1246. Pelletan: Levallois-Perret.}

_{Délery, J.M. (2001). Robert Legendre and Henri Werlé: Toward the elucidation of three-dimensional separation. Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 33: 129-154. P}

_{Legendre, R. (1950). Cours de moteurs thermiques. ENPC: Paris. Legendre, R. (1956). La vie dans les mers. PUF: Paris.}

_{Legendre, R. (1961). Domaines divers d'emploi des turbines à gaz. Technip: Paris.}

_{Legendre, R. (1961). Calcul des profils d'aubes pour turbomachines transsoniques. Progress in Aeronautical Sciences 1: 8-25.}

_{Legendre, R. (1962). Les fonctions et intégrales elliptiques à module réel en mécanique des fluides. ONERA: Paris.}