Henri Bénard

Who was Henri Bénard?

Henri Claude Bénard, French physicist, best known for his research on convection in liquids that now carries his name, Bénard convection. In addition, the historical surveys of both Tokaty and von Kármán both acknowledge that Bénard studied the vortex shedding phenomenon later named the von Karman vortex street, prior to von Karman's own contributions. Bénard specialized in experimental fluid dynamics, and the use of optical methods to study it. He was a faculty member at the universities at Lyon, Bordeaux, and finally the Sorbonne in Paris.

Bénard defended his PhD thesis at the Collège de France on March 15, 1901 entitled "Les Tourbillons cellulaires dans une nappe liquide propageant de la chaleur par convection en régime permanent".

Bénard was elected President of the French Society of Physics in 1929, following the presidency of Louis Lumière. He was succeeded as President the next year by his friend and former teacher, Jean Perrin. In 1929 Bénard received the Bordin prize for his work on vortices from the French Academy of Sciences. After his death in 1939, his widow received the Poncelet Prize on his behalf, also from the French Academy of Sciences.