Benoît Rouquayrol

Benoît Rouquayrol ( born June 13, 1826 in Espalion, † November 14, 1875 in Rodez) was a French mining engineer who developed the forerunner of the modern compressed air diving apparatus, together with the French Navy officer Auguste Denayrouze and his brother Louis.

Life

After attending high school in Rodez and the Collège d' Espalion to Rouquayrol wrote in 1848 at the School of Mines in Saint- Étienne -in. The mining and iron foundry company of his home region of Aveyron imagine him after graduating as a mining engineer. Some years he worked in a mining and blast furnace operations of the company before he was operations director there in 1865. He died 49 years old from influenza, after he had previously attacked health strong.

Through his work in the mining trade Rouquayrol knew from personal experience the special risks for the miners that result, and thought of remedy from the collection of non- respirable gases in the tunnels. To this end he developed in 1860 a respirator with membrangesteuertem regulators, which allowed its wearer to move into these areas and getting help to accident miners. For this invention he received in 1863 at a regional exhibition a Gold Medal for outstanding services to the mining trade. 1865 the apparatus was patented.

In collaboration with Auguste and Louis Denayrouze from the respirator was a dive tank, which was initially used by the French Navy and later the world and known as the Rouquayrol - Denayrouze.

The French writer Jules Verne put this device in his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, a literary monument. The Musée du Scaphandre in Espalion reminiscent of the work Rouquayrols.

• Frenchman
• Inventor
• Person (mining)
• Diver
• Born in 1826
• Died in 1875
• Man