François Bourdon
| François Prudent Bourdon | |
|---|---|
François Bourdon
|
|
| Born |
29 July 1797 Seurre, Côte-d'Or, France |
| Died | 19 April 1865 (aged 67) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Engineer, inventor |
| Known for | Steam hammer |
François Prudent Bourdon (29 July 1797 – 19 April 1865) was a French engineer and inventor, mainly interested in development of steam powered boats for inland navigation. He is known for designing one of the first steam hammers.
François Prudent Bourdon was born at Seurre in the Côte-d'Or department of France on 29 July 1797. He was educated in the College of Mâcon. His father owned mills and river boats in Mâcon, and François joined his business after leaving school. After several year, François Bourdon and his younger brother founded a workshop. At Saint-Laurent-sur-Saône, a town opposite Mâcon, Francois and his brother Auguste ran an establishment whose main purpose was steam-powered wheat milling.
In 1824 Bourdon took out a patent for a new tugboat design. In 1824 at Lyon, on the Saône between la Mulatière and the île Barbe, Bourdon made several attempts at steam-powered towing. He ran into various difficulties, mostly not technical. Bourdon's first two boats, Océan and Méditerranée, were built at Saint-Laurent-sur-Saône in 1825-26. The two boats were both steam-powered, and both had two 20 hp engines. They had shallow drafts, so could navigate the river most of the year if the river were dredged. Bourdon had a vision of the Saône becoming the key link in a water route from the Mediterranean via the Rhone to Lyon, then north via the Saône towards a network of canals that would connect to the Loire and the Rhine. In 1826 Bourdon created a company for steam navigation of the Saône, but it was short-lived.
In 1826 the English partners Manby and Wilson acquired the iron forging mills at Le Creusot in 1826. They employed Bourdon from 1827 to 1833 to run the workshop for maintaining the forges and tools. Bourdon's first job was to modernize the works by installing the high-powered rolling mills needed to manufacture long lengths of rail for the railway lines in France. In 1833 Bourdon traveled to the United States for three years to study the high-pressure steam engines used on the river boats there, including the engines built by the American engineer Oliver Evans. He learned many techniques during this trip.
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