Background
Lecornu was born on January 13, 1854, in Caen, France. He was the brother of Joseph Lecornu.
14 Avenue Albert Sorel, 14000 Caen, France
Lecornu proved an exceptional student, at the secondary school in Caen (now Lycée Malherbe); in his final year he won the prize of honor in the annual concours general.
Route de Saclay, 91120 Palaiseau, France
Lecornu easily passed the competitive entrance examinations for both the École Normale Supérieure and the École polytechnique. He entered the latter in 1872 but two years later transferred to the École Supérieure des Mines.
60 Boulevard Saint-Michel, 75272 Paris, France
Lecornu easily passed the competitive entrance examinations for both the École Normale Supérieure and the École polytechnique. He entered the latter in 1872 but two years later transferred to the École Supérieure des Mines.
15-21 Rue de l'École de Médecine, 75006 Paris, France
In 1880 Lecornu received a doctoral es sciences from the Sorbonne with his dissertation, "Sur l'equilibre des surfaces flexibles et inextensibles."
Lecornu was born on January 13, 1854, in Caen, France. He was the brother of Joseph Lecornu.
Lecornu proved an exceptional student, at the secondary school in Caen (now Lycée Malherbe); in his final year, he won the prize of honor in the annual concours general and easily passed the competitive entrance examinations for both the École Normale Supérieure and the École Polytechnique. He entered the latter in 1872 but two years later transferred to the École Supérieure des Mines.
In 1880 Lecornu received a doctoral es sciences from the Sorbonne with his dissertation, "Sur l'equilibre des surfaces flexibles et inextensibles."
After graduating Lecornu joined the Corps des Mines and began to pursue two careers simultaneously - one professional, the other academic. His first engineering assignments were in Rennes and in Caen. In 1893, when he returned to Paris, he was promoted to chief engineer in charge of the technical supervision of the railroads of western France. He rose in the Corps des Mines to the rank of inspector general first-class and retired in 1924.
In 1881 he joined the faculty of Caen as an associate professor. After his move to Paris, he was appointed repetiteur at the École Polytechnique (1896) and professor of mechanics at the École des Mines (1900) and at the École Polytechnique (1904). After retiring from the latter in 1927, he continued to teach at the École nationale supérieure de l'aéronautique until 1934. The tenor of Lecornu's original work in mechanics is the application of the classical methods to the analysis of a variety of engineering problems. In his dissertation, he established the relationship between the stresses and the geometrical characteristics of deformed surfaces. Applying his general theory to an ellipsoidal surface, he was able to determine the conditions of rupture of air balloons. A similar approach was used to analyze the stability of rotating millstones.
Other representative studies are his papers on pendulums of variable length, on inertial errors in the steam engine indicator, on speed regulation, and on the dynamics of gear teeth. Much of Lecornu's writing was expository and didactic and was characterized by an informal, popular style. He wrote a number of textbooks on mechanics and mechanical engineering and edited the multivolume Encyclopédie de mecanique appliquee (Paris, 1924). In 1910 Lecornu was elected a member of the mechanics section of the Académie des sciences, which he served as president in 1930. He received the Prix Poncelet (1900) and the Prix Montyon (1909) and was a commander of the Legion of Honor.
(French Edition)
1914
Nothing is known of Lecornu's family.