ESCOFFIER

FRANCE (see also List of Individuals)

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19.3.1908 /F - 16.6.1995 Mobile/USA

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Francis Escoffier attended the Arts and Science School of Loyola University, New Orleans, yet without a graduation. He was employed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1929 to attain the professional level in 1937. From 1940 to 1943 he served on the staff of the beach erosion department, then he continued as a hydraulic engineer in the Mobile District of the Corps and headed from 1953 until retirement in 1965 its hydraulic section. He was decorated in 1965 with a colleague the Karl Emil Hilgard Award of the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE. From 1966 to 1975, Escoffier was a consultant in coastal engineering.

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Escoffier is known for a number of flood control, beach erosion and other hydraulic projects. In hydraulics his works include backwater curves in open channels, for which the American Chow had presented a generalized solution in the early 1950s and where Escoffier described a graphical approach. The 1958 paper generalizes previous findings on local widening or contracting channel reaches. However, backwater effects are small for these short transition reaches,. The real master paper of Escoffier relates to roll waves. These waves occur in weakly supercritical open channel flow provided two criteria are satisfied, namely the Vedernikov number as introduced by Valentin Valentinovich Vedernikov (1904-1980) is larger than one, and the chute has a certain length as determined with the Montuori number. Escoffier and Boyd generalized the Vedernikov criterion for circular conduits and thus allowed for a stability analysis of sewer flows to inhibit periodic surface wave generation.

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_{Anonymous (1960). Task Committee on channel stabilization. Civil Engineering 30(12): 78. P}

_{Anonymous (1962). Francis F. Escoffier. Civil Engineering 32(10): 26. P}

_{Anonymous (1965). Karl Emil Hilgard Hydraulic Prize. Civil Engineering 35(10): 93. P}

_{Davis, G. (1985). Escoffier, Francis F. Who's who in engineering 6: 186. American Association of Engineering Societies: Washington.}

_{Escoffier, F.F. (1956). Graphical determination of water-surface profiles. Journal of the Hydraulics Division ASCE 82(HY6) Paper 1114: 1-13.}

_{Escoffier, F.F. (1958). Transition profiles in nonuniform channels. Trans. ASCE 123: 43-65. Escoffier, F.F., Boyd, M.B. (1962). Stability aspects of flow in open channels. Journal of the Hydraulics Division ASCE 88(HY6): 145-166; 89(HY4): 259-273; 90(HY1): 261-263;}

_{90(HY4): 219.}

_{Horst, T.A., Jr. (2004). Francis Fernand Escoffier. Personal communication.}