Louis Le Chatelier

Louis Le Chatelier ( born February 20, 1815 in Paris, † November 10, 1873 ) was a French engineer.

Le Chatelier studied from 1834 to 1836 at the Ecole Polytechnique and then at the Ecole des Mines. He was then a mining engineer in government services ( he later had the general supervision of the French mines Inspector General of Mines ). He invented a miner's lamp, which was named after him, and a method firedamp, which could lead to firedamp explosions to discover.

Le Chatelier developed in 1855 a method to obtain aluminum from bauxite and was one of the founders of the French aluminum industry, he played a role in the introduction of the open-hearth furnace in the French steel industry and was an important figure in the building of the French railway, for which he was in charge of the state from 1846. In particular, he was also from 1852 a technical advisor at the extensive investments in industry and the railway Émile Pereire brothers and Isaac Pereire, the owner of the bank Crédit mobilière. He was thereby clamped and internationally, for example, for railways in Russia and Spain and developed railway and industry in northern France. In addition, he was still active in state committees. He has published several books on railways and locomotives.

He had four sons and one daughter. He is the father of the chemist Henry Le Chatelier, the civil engineer Louis Le Chatelier (1853-1928), one of the builders of the Paris Metro and later head of blast furnaces in Caen, and the marine engineer André Le Chatelier (1861-1929), the was known for his studies of steel alloys for marine propulsion. His grandson Robert ( born 1930) was head of the steel company Ugine (now Ugitech ).

He is one of the 72 names on the Eiffel tower and a street in Paris is named after him.

Writings

  • Mémoire sur les eaux corrosives employées dans les chaudières à vapeur, 1842
  • Chemins de fer d' Allemagne, description statistique, système d' exécution, tracé, voie de fer 1845
  • With Ernest Goüin: Recherches sur les machines EXPERIMENTALES locomotives ', 1845
  • Études sur la stabilité of machines locomotives en mouvement, 1849
  • With Eugène Flachat, Jules Petiet, Camille Polonceau: you guide mécanicien constructeur conducteur et de machines locomotives, 2 volumes, 1851
  • Chemins de fer d' Angleterre en 1851. Matériel fixed, matériel roulant, exploitation et administration, législation et statistique, 1852
  • Chemins de fer. Mémoire sur la marche à contre- vapeur des machines locomotives, notice historique, 1869
  • Chemins de fer. Supplément au mémoire sur la marche à contre- vapeur des machines locomotives, 1869
  • Cleansing, note sur l' épuration des eaux d' égout ', 1872
Open hearth furnace Henry Louis Le Chatelier List of the 72 names on the Eiffel Tower Carl Wilhelm Siemens
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