Background
Clapeyron was born on January 26, 1799, in Paris, France.
Route de Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau, France
Clapeyron graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1818.
Route de Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau, France
Clapeyron graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1818.
engineer physicist professor scientist
Clapeyron was born on January 26, 1799, in Paris, France.
Clapeyron graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1818 and then attended the École des Mines.
In 1820 Clapeyron and his friend and classmate Gabriel Lamé went to Russia, where they taught pure and applied science at the École des Travaux Publics in St. Petersburg and did construction work. While in Russia they published a number of papers in the Journal des voies de communication de Saint-Pétersbourg, the Journal du génie civil, and the Bulletin Ferussac, as well as various works that came out in France. They left, following the July Revolution of 1830, when their position became somewhat difficult because of their well-known liberal tendencies.
Upon returning to France, Clapeyron engaged in railroad engineering, specializing in the design and construction of steam locomotives. In 1836 he traveled to England to order some locomotives that would negotiate a particularly long continuous grade along the St.-Germain line. When the illustrious Robert Stephenson declined to undertake the commission because of its difficulty, the machines were built in the shops of Sharp and Roberts, according to Clapeyron’s designs. He extended his activities to include the design of metal bridges, making notable contributions in this area.
Clapeyron was elected to the Academy of Sciences in 1848, replacing Cauchy, and served on numerous committees of the Academy, including that which awarded the prize in mechanics and those which investigated the project for piercing the Isthmus of Suez and the application of steam to naval uses.
Clapeyron had a continuing interest in steam-engine design and theory throughout his career. His most important research paper dealt with regulation of the valves in a steam engine. From 1844 Clapeyron was a professor at the École des Ponts et Chaussées, where he taught the course on the steam engine.
Carnot’s work found hardly an echo among his contemporaries until 1834, when Clapeyron published a paper that is a detailed exposition of the Réflexions. In it he transformed Carnot’s verbal analysis into the symbolism of the calculus and represented the Carnot cycle graphically by means of the Watt indicator diagram, familiar to engineers. The paper also appeared in translation in Ëngland and Germany, so that despite the rarity of the original, Carnot’s work was generally available and associated with the name of Clapeyron. However, not only was Clapeyron’s original paper ignored by the other engineers, but he himself made only one passing reference to it until the work of Kelvin and Clausius made its true significance generally known as the basis for the second law of thermodynamics.
Clapeyron is best known today for the relationship, which bears his name, between the temperature coefficient of the equilibrium vapor pressure over a liquid or solid and the heat of vaporization. This was an application of Sadi Carnot’s principle, as developed by Carnot in his memoir Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu (1824).
Clapeyron married Mélanie Bazaine, daughter of Pierre-Dominique Bazaine, and older sister of Pierre-Dominique (Adolphe) Bazaine and Francois Achille Bazaine (Marshal of France).
