VANTROYS

FRANCE (see also List of Individuals)

\

17.3.1911 Paris/F - 24.1.1959 Paris/F

\

Lucien Vantroys started his career in 1932 with the Hydrographic Service of the French Marine once having completed Ecole Polytechnique. In 1936 he was asked by the Ministère de l'Air to collect data from Lake Biscarosse, and then a large data set from the bay of Ajaccio three years later. During the war time Vantroys supported his country from England. When returning to France in 1944, he joined the Hydrographic Service again and helped clearing the harbors from war debris. In 1946 he joined Electricité de France EDF as the chief engineer of the service investigating the utilization of tides for power production. He thus collaborated with Robert Gibrat (1904-1980) of which the result was the Rance tidal power plant taken into service some years after Vantroys' death.

\

Vantroys contributions to hydraulics involve two main subject matters, namely tidal hydraulics and the scientific background of tidal power plants. In tidal hydraulics he considered the problem from an analytical, an energetic and an undular point of view. When being a Lecturer at University of Grenoble, under Julien Kravtchenko (1911-1994), he presented an important paper on the governing equations that retain the main effects of tidal waves. Vantroys discovered a similarity between the equations of tidal flow and rotating machinery. The tidal equation of hyperbolic type was presented for plane channel flow in which the effects of friction and of the Earth's rotation were neglected. The expression for wave propagation was as predicted by Joseph Lagrange (1736-1813). By introducing a Fourier analysis, the governing relation was described with a Laplace equation. Vantroys was able to reduce his problem to three distinct wave equations, involving those of Kelvin, of Poincaré-Sverdrup, and of Poincaré-Fichot.

\

_{Gibrat, R. (1959). Hommage à Lucien Vantroys. La Houille Blanche 14(A): 637-642. P}

_{Vantroys, L. (1955). L'utilisation de l'énergie des marées. Annales de l'Institut du Bâtiment et des Travaux Publics 8(87/88): 319-336.}

_{Vantroys, L. (1957). Le remous d'un ouvrage dans une mer à marée. Thèse, Université de Paris: Paris.}

_{Vantroys, L. (1957). La propagation des ondes de marée. La Houille Blanche 12(B): 640-650.}

_{Vantroys, L., Magnien, M., Barret, P. (1958). Influence de la houle sur le comportement des groupes marémotrices. 5 Journées d'Hydraulique Aix-en-Provence: 195-208.}

_{Vantroys, L. (1959). Structure formelle attachée à l'équation du problème des marées. La Houille Blanche 14(5): 533-544.}