Alphonse Sagebien

Who was Alphonse Sagebien?

Alphonse Eléonor Sagebien was a French hydrological engineer born in Amiens and the inventor of the Sagebien wheel - a device that made hydraulically powered systems much more efficient in extracting energy from moving water.

Sagebien graduated with a degree in engineering in 1833 at École Centrale Paris and worked primarily in metallurgy. He discovered many of the mineral seams still worked today in the French department of Pas-de-Calais. After 1848, he shifted to hydrological engineering, designing and patenting the wheel that bears his name. This invention is able to extract 50% more energy from flowing water than previous paddle-based systems and is still used today.

Sagebien was also a municipal counsellor for Amiens from 1878 to 1888.