Saint-Venant, Adhémar Jean Claude Barré de

Saint-Venant, Adhémar Jean Claude Barré de 

Born Aug. 23, 1797, in Villiers-en-Bière, Seine-et-Marne Department; died Jan. 6, 1886, in St-Ouen, Loire-et-Cher Department. French scientist in the field of mechanics. Member of the Académie des Sciences (1868).

After graduating from the Polytechnic School in Paris in 1816, Saint-Venant worked as an engineer. He subsequently taught at the School of Bridges and Roads in Paris and at an agronomy institute in Versailles.

Saint-Venant’s principal works dealt with the theory of elasticity, the strength of materials, hydraulics, and hydrodynamics. Saint-Venant introduced the semi-inverse method of solving problems in the theory of elasticity and formulated the principle of the moderation of boundary conditions (Saint-Venant principle). In 1855 he constructed a general theory for the torsion and bending of prismatic beams. Saint-Venant studied the collision of elastic beams and laid the foundations for the theory of plasticity of a perfectly plastic body. He also studied the flow of gases from apertures and the motion of liquids in open channels.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Memuary o krucheniiprizm—Memuar ob izgibeprizm. Moscow, 1961. REFERENCE
Istoriia mekhaniki s kontsa XVIII veka do serediny XX veka. Editors in chief, A. T. Grigor’ian and I. B. Pogrebysskii. Moscow, 1972.