Graduated at the École Polytechnique in Paris, in 1816 he participated in some student riots at the school. He joined the faculty of the Institute of the Corps of Engineers in Russia as reinforcement in 1821, topping the chairs of chemistry and applied mechanics.

Like Gabriel Lamé, Clapeyron was a follower of the liberal theories of Saint-Simon, in addition to teaching engineering at the Institute he participated in the calculations of the stability of the Dome of St. Isaac (1823) and of the Column of Alexander. From his experience in Russia came his great contributions to the theory of elasticity, his fundamental memoirSur l’equilibre intérieur des corps solidez homogènes (On the interior balance of homogeneous solid bodies), presented to the French Academy of Sciences. For a decade (1820 - 1830) he served in Russia, until his liberal ideas forced him to leave the country.

In 1834, he contributed to the creation of modern thermodynamics by publishing a report entitled Driving force of the heat, which developed the work of Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, who had died two years earlier. In this report, he provided a particular graphical interpretation of Carnot's theorem, which stipulated that the work provided by a heat engine with two sources is maximum if the machine operates reversibly.

This diagram of Clapeyron was a representation of the states through which the fluid passed, through curves that give the pressure of the fluid in terms of its volume at a given temperature. In 1843, Clapeyron defines the concept of reversible transformation. This concept allows him to write Carnot’s principle (corresponding to the second law of thermodynamics) in the form of an equation, making it more useful in practice.

In this framework, the Clapeyron formula was established, which relates the latent heat with the change of state of a pure substance. Clapeyron is also related to other works that have to do with the formulation of the ideal gas law, or the equilibrium of homogeneous solids. The differential equation that determines the heat of vaporization of a liquid, bears his name.

In 1844 Clapeyron was appointed professor at the École des Ponts et Chaussées and later, in 1848, he was elected to the French Academy of Science. He died in Paris in 1864.