Félix Savary was a student at the École Polytechnique, then taught there, becoming a professor of astronomy and geodesy in 1831. There he became a founder of studies into surveying and machines.
Savary also served as librarian at the Bureau des Longitudes from 1823 to 1829. Then in 1832 he was elected the Académie des Sciences.
He worked on electromagnetism and electrodynamics, some work being done jointly with Ampère. In particular, on this topic, he wrote Mémoire sur l'application du calcul aux phenomènes élecro-dynamique (1823).
Savary also developed a theorem (named after him) on the curvature of a roulette, the curve traced out by a point on a fixed curve which rolls on a second curve.
He wrote on the rotation of magnets, applied the laws of gravity to determine the orbits of double stars in close orbit round each other (1827), and studied the intensity of magnetism through an electrical discharge (1827).