Henri Pitot ( PEE-toh; French: [ɑ̃ʁi pito]; May 3, 1695 – December 27, 1771) was a French hydraulic engineer and the inventor of the Pitot tube.
Henri Pitot established the relationship between fluid velocity and stagnation pressure in 1732 while investigating the flow of the Seine. In a Pitot tube, the fluid entering the inner tube is brought to rest, producing a stagnation pressure that can be measured using a pressure gauge or manometer. Alternatively, this pressure may be transmitted to an enclosed chamber, such as the float bowl of a carburetor. When a manometer contains the same fluid as the flow being measured, the difference in fluid-column height corresponding to the stagnation and static pressures is proportional to the square of the flow velocity.
He rose to fame with the design of the Aqueduc de Saint-Clément near Montpellier (the construction lasted thirteen years), and the extension of Pont du Gard in Nîmes. In 1724, he became a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and in 1740 a fellow of the Royal Society.
The Pitot theorem of plane geometry is named after him.
Rue Henri Pitot in Carcassonne is named after him.
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