3 Discoverers in Espalion

Benoît ROUQUAYROL
1826 - 1875

Benoît Rouquayrol was born in Espalion (Aveyron - France) in 1826 and he was an engineer in the coal mines in Decazeville. He was concerned about accidents due to firedamp and about to be unable to rescue miners in galleries filled with gas. From 1860 to 1863, he filed 3 patents about a rescue apparatus.

1860, April 14" A regulator to regulate flowing of compressed gas "
1862, January 16" Isoleur Rouquayrol" consisted of a regulator and a mask with a mouth piece.
1863, August 25A special blowing pump ( with fixed pistons and moving cylinders )

In 1863 he received a golden medal in an exhibition in Nîmes (France)

 
Auguste DENAYROUZE
1837 - 1883

Auguste Denayrouze was born in 1837, October 1 in Montpeyroux (Aveyron - France ) on Aubrac mountain. He entered in Naval School in 1852. He was promoted as a vessel lieutenant in 1862 and took part in an expedition in Cochin china where he contracted a bad sickness which made unfitted for navy servic . At rest in Espalion, he took an interest for the Rouquayrol's inventions whose he detected all potentials for underwater works.

In 1864 the both men began to realize the " Rouquayrol-Denayrouze' s diving apparatus ". During the month of June, an additional clause of the 3 Rouquayrol' s patents was the birth certificate of the first self diving apparatus with a demand valve regulator.

In 1865, February was created the " Rouquarol-Denayrouze's Society ". Auguste took charge of steady the development and the trading of inventions as well to the states marines as to the private societies. He created the " French Society for the Fishing of Sponges " in the eastern Mediterranean.

Louis DENAYROUZE
1848 - 1910

Louis Denayrouze was born in 1848, May 17 and he was Auguste's brother. He passed in the Ecole Polytechnique in 1867. I entrusted to him the management of the " Sponges Society " based in Smyrna to trade the diving apparatus. In 1874, that society was dissolved to create the " United Mechanics Specialities Society " whose he became the director.

He has an inventive mind and filled several patents:
1872, June 2 He created the " Aérophore", an apparatus to work in mines, and a waterproof paraffin lamp also usable in underwater version.
1874, February He created an " underwater acoustic cornet ".
  
Apart from the diving domain, Louis was at work in the literature (he was a novelist, a poet, an essayist, an author of theatre plays and short stories). He was also interested in the electric lighting, a work which made his fortune.
1860 - the Regulator
detail of a drawing
(Museum of Mine in Aubin)

the Benoît Rouquayrol's regulator (1860)

That apparatus consisted of a tank R1 supplied with air by a pump and topped with a regulator R2. The possibility to stock air compressed in the tank allowed creating the self diving, in spite of the restriction set by the materials of that time.

2 models of the regulator were built in 1865:
1. the "low pressure" model (8 and 25 litres), with a pump, for quickly underwater interventions or rescue in mines or fires.
2. the "high pressure" model (35 litres), for self diving, with air compressed to 30 kg for diving during half an hour to 10 m of depth.
An iron model reinforced with rivets could be compressed to 40 kg.
 

 

 

In his first patents, Rouquayrol drawed a two stages regulator to make easier the air flowing from high pressure to low pressure. A system always used in modern regulators.

 

Sketch from Rouquayrol's
original drawing in 1860
list
1864 - the Self Diving Apparatus

Rouquayrol-Denayrouze 1864

The Rouquayrol and Denayrouze's brothers's association took invention from mines to sea.

In 1864, June the apparatus became a self diving apparatus with addition of a no-return valve in the tank. That valve allowed creating an air compressed reserve. Copper didn't resist to a pressure higher than 30 kg/cm2 and, according to it, the time of the diving was limited. But the self diving apparatus was born.

In the XXth century, new materials allowed increasing time of diving.

That is the first self diving apparatus in history, with an air-compressed tank and the on request regulator. It was given to the museum by the Piel Society, first French maker of heavy suit apparatus, and successor of the Denayrouze and Charles Petit Societies. That Rouquayrol-Denayrouze's apparatus is the only exemplary of XIXth century in the world.

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