Bénoit Fourneyron was born in Saint-Étienne, France in 1802. He studied at the New School of Mines and became an engineer. Fourneyron designed the first practical water turbine in 1827. He died in 1867.
Fourneyron showed that entrance without shock could be achieved by having the water enter the turbine parallel (tangent) to the vane.
Fourneyron's tests were not terribly accurate at first, but Captain Arthur-Jules Morin did careful comparative tests in which he developed the Prony dynamometer as an instrument of precision.
In his early Fourneyron turbines, Boyden calculated the pressures and designed the passages so that the water was uniformly accelerated as it moved through the turbine, producing a constant pressure on the vanes.
These guide blades deflected the water outward against the moving vanes of a "runner." The vanes of this outer runner were curved in the opposite direction from the fixed inner guide blades, reversing the direction of water flow within the device and creating a reactive force.
Fourneyron's patent described his invention as "a wheel of universal and continuous pressure or hydraulic turbine."
In 1842, the owner of a cotton print-works in Fall River, Mass., saw a Fourneyron turbine in operation in France.
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