Jean-Baptiste-Charles-Joseph Bélanger

Jean-Baptiste Charles Joseph Bélanger (1790-1874) was a French applied mathematician who worked in the areas of hydraulics and hydrodynamics. He was a professor at the École des Ponts et Chaussées. He is often credited improperly for the application of the momentum principle to a hydraulic jump in a rectangular open channel. His true contribution in 1828 was the development of the backwater equation for gradually-varied flows in open channels.

References

*J.B. BELANGER (1828)" "Essai sur la Solution Numérique de quelques Problèmes Relatifs au Mouvement Permanent des Eaux Courantes." ('Essay on the Numerical Solution of Some Problems relative to Steady Flow of Water.') Carilian-Goeury, Paris, France (in French).

*Olivier Darrigol (2005): Worlds of Flow - A History of Hydrodynamics from the Bernoullis to Prandtl, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198568436 [The Belanger backwater equation is equation (6.6) on Page 224]