Jean Résal (22 October 1854– 14 November 1919) was a French civil engineer. He was a Professor of mechanical engineering at the École polytechnique, and designed several steel bridges in France, especially bridges above the Seine in Paris.

Photo: Ben XU
The career of the brilliant student of the École des Ponts ParisTech was always an upward ladder: service in the Roads and Bridges Department at the Loire-Atlantique Département and thereafter in the shipping authority in Paris.

Photo: Ali Sabbagh
Résal concentrated on the theory and practice of steel bridges from a very early stage. He had a profound influence on steel bridges at the transition from the discipline-formation to the consolidation period of theory of structures. He will demonstrate the inadequacy of the notion of yield strength in design calculations.

Photo: Ibex73
The bold steel arches of the Pont Général-de-la-Motte-Rouge (1885) in Nantes, Pont Mirabeau (1896) in Paris, Pont de l’Université in Lyon (1899), Pont Alexandre III (1900) and Pont Notre-Dame (1914) in Paris set standards for steel bridges. All those bridges could only be built as a result of Résal’s research into elasticity and the strength of structural steels, work that he summarized in a monograph.
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Bruno Dursin – Managing Director at Believe in Steel. Bruno has more than 30 years of experience in promoting steel & steel solutions. His clients benefit from his extensive network within the building industry.