Alphonse Couvreux
Alphonse Couvreux (* 1820 - 8 July 1890 ) was a French building contractor who was best known as the inventor of the bucket chain excavator , for which he had applied for a patent in May 1860 .
Since its invention, the bucket chain excavator has been used on many large construction sites, in clay pits and in earthworks for railway and canal construction.
The first documented use of the bucket chain excavator on land took place in 1859. Couvreux used some of his machines to dig material for the Ardennes railway. During the construction of the Suez Canal from 1863 to 1868, around 8 million cubic meters of material were excavated from the Suez Canal bed with seven of his bucket chain excavators. Some of Couvreux's machines were used in the early failed French attempt to build the Panama Canal .
He was commissioned by the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph to participate in the regulation of the Danube and to deepen the river bed after a number of Austrian engineers had tried in vain. A large Couvreux excavator was used for the enlargement and deepening of the channel of Gent to Terneuzen and for the construction of the port of Antwerp used.
A scale model of one of his machines from 1859 is in the Musée des arts et métiers in Paris.
Appreciation
The Rue Alphonse Couvreux in Vigneux-sur-Seine is named after him.
Individual evidence
- ^ Suez Canal. In: Encyclopædia Britannica , Volume 26, 1911, p. 24.
- ↑ Bulletin of the Association of Former Students of the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris, No. 90, July 1890, pp. 109–110.
- ↑ De l'inventeur à l'entrepreneur, histoire de brevets. Musée des Arts et Métiers (Paris), 2008.
- ↑ Model of the bucket chain excavator in the Musée des Arts et Métiers
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Couvreux, Alphonse |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French contractor and inventor of a bucket chain excavator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1820 |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 8, 1890 |