Hydrology, hydrogeology, soil science, civil engineering, petroleum
engineering, and chemical engineering all benefit from Henry Darcy's
discoveries and innovations in fluid flow.
Darcy was born on June 10, 1803 and spent most of his life
in France. He was educated in science
and engineering at the L'Ecole Polytechnique.
In 1823 he entered L'Ecole des Ponts et Chaussee's, or the school of
bridges and roads.
He was employed by Le Corps des Ponts et Chaussées to
support France's infrastructure. In 1828,
one of his first assignments was to conduct a feasibility study of his town's
public water supply. Darcy discovered
that deep well drilling could not adequately support the town's water needs. He
created a plan for a system to deliver water from a nearby spring using an
aqueduct and reservoir system. It was
gravity-driven, requiring no pumps or filters. A system was built based on his
recommendation and was second only to Rome at its time (1840).
He later worked as Chief Director for Water and Pavements in
Paris. He researched flow and friction
loss in pipes, contributing to the Darcy-Weisbach
equation for pipe flow. Darcy also
worked to improve the design of the Pilot tube, a pressure instrument used to
measure fluid flow velocity. Darcy
modified the 17th century design of Henri Pitot to a form still used
today.
The discovery of Darcy's Law was
found in Note D, an appendix of his book Les
Fontaines Publiques de la Ville de Dijon (The Public Fountains of the City
of Dijon), published in 1856. Through
sand experiments he described the flow of fluid through porous media.
Henry Darcy had been in poor health for several years by the
time his book was published. He died of
pneumonia in Paris on January 3, 1858.
Resources:
Oklahoma
State: Henry Darcy and His Law
Rutgers: Henry Darcy (1803-1858): Immortalised by his
scientific legacy
Wikipedia:
Henry Darcy [image]
Wikipedia:
Pitot tube
| 
Re: Henry Darcy (1803 - 1858)
Users who posted comments:
CaptMoosie (1); Del the cat (2); PWSlack (2); Tornado (2)