Designed and constructed in the early 1940s, this laboratory has an unequalled capacity to simulate a wide range of climatic conditions from arctic cold to jungle moisture. Data from tests of some three hundred different aircraft and over two thousand items of equipment has provided information vital to the performance, safety, and reliability of aircraft operating in extremes of weather.
ASME
Term Image
YearAdded:
Image Credit: Public Domain (United States Air Force)Image Caption: McKinley Climatic LaboratoryEra_date_from: 1944
1987
The Belle of Louisville, built in 1914, is the oldest operating “western rivers” steamboat. It has the shallow-draft flat-bottom hull braced by hog-chain trusses, multiple fire-tube boilers, paddlewheel propulsion, and superstructure configuration that were characteristic of hundreds of steamboats that plied America’s rivers during the 19th and 20th centuries
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Bailey Visual Life (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: Belle of Louisville, still in operationEra_date_from: 1914
2010
At the mountain where the Civil War's Battle Above the Clouds was waged, tourist business has thrived from the building of its first toll road (Whiteside Pike) in 1857 to present day.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Duane Tate (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: Lookout Mountain Incline RailwayEra_date_from: 1895
1991
This steam crawler-tractor emancipated horses from the killing work of hauling trains of sleds over iced roads in the winter woods of the United States and Canada.
Designed, patented (1901), and built by Alvin C. Lombard (1856-1937) of Waterville, Maine, eighty-three "Lombards" were the first practical examples of the often-tried lag or crawler tread that would become the mark of the internal combustion engine-driven agricultural and construction equipment and military tank in current use.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/cliff1066,Image Caption: Lombard Steam Log HaulerEra_date_from: 1910
1982
This machine is an unusual triple-expansion, three-crank rocker engine, which in its day was a high-capacity unit providing outstanding performance for the Boston Water Works Corporation. Designed by Erasmus Darwin Leavitt, Jr. (1836-1916), Engine No. 3 was installed in 1894 to a high-service pumping facility on the south side of the Chestnut Hill Reservoir in Brighton.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (National Park Service)Image Caption: Leavitt-Riedler Pumping EngineEra_date_from: 1894
1973
The La Esperanza sugar mill steam engine is one of the few remaining American links to the pioneer beam engines of the English inventors Thomas Newcomen (1712) and James Watt (1769). The engine was built in 1861 in Cold Spring, New York, by the West Point Foundry. The general arrangement and details, including the Gothic embellishment, are typical of machinery of the period. The straight-line motion of the piston rod is accommodated to the arc of the moving beam end by a parallel motion. Watt regarded this ingenious linkage as the invention of which he was most proud.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (National Park Service)Image Caption: Hacienda La Esperanza Sugar Mill Steam EngineEra_date_from: 1861
1979
This is one of the earliest US foundry-machine shops remaining in operation and one of the few water powered. It was founded by Samuel N. Knight (1838-1913) to manufacture machinery for the gold mines of the Mother Lode region. Knight was one of several inventors experimenting with impulse turbines to exploit the area's abundant high-head water power for driving hoists, ore stamps, and other mining machinery.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Wikipedia/Bobak Ha'Eri (CC BY 3.0)Image Caption: Knight Foundry and Machine ShopEra_date_from: 1873
1995
This Kaplan turbine is one of the first three machines to be put into service in the United States. Named for its Austrian inventor, Viktor Kaplan (1876-1934), the turbine was an outstanding innovation, operating with a high, nearly constant efficiency over a wide load range. The machine was built by S. Morgan Smith Company of York, Pennsylvania.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (United States Arm0Image Caption: Kaplan TurbineEra_date_from: 1929
1980
This ironworks exemplified the adaptability required for industrial survival in a dynamic technical environment. It was a major western producer of mechanical equipment used in mining (especially large hydraulic machines), ship propulsion, irrigation, power generation, optical telescope mounts, and nuclear research.
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Image Credit: Public DomainImage Caption: Joshua Hendy Iron WorksEra_date_from: 1906
1978
This is one of several, similar inclines built in western Pennsylvania during the late 19th century. It was designed by Samuel Diescher (1839-1915) after the great flood of 1889, to provide an efficient means of transportation between Westmont and the Conemaugh Valley. (See also the Monogahela and Duquesne Inclines in Pittsburgh.)
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Jeremy Tenenbaum (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: Johnstown InclineEra_date_from: 1891
1994
Innovations
In 1964, Shinkansen (which means "new trunk line" and is also known as the bullet train) between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka became the world's first high-speed railway system, running at a maximum business speed of over 200 km/h (130-160 mph).
The nose profile, starting with the original…
The Turbinia was the world's first turbine-driven ship. It attracted worldwide attention at the 1897 Spithead Naval Review by traveling more than 34 knots. This remarkable performance accelerated the acceptance of the steam turbine as an alternative to the steam reciprocating engine on ships as…
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The USS Albacore (AGSS-569) represented a radical change in submarine design. The hull was designed with underwater speed as the prime requirement, and it was built with newly developed high-strength steel (HY-80). In addition to these two major innovations, the Albacore served as a…
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The Cairo is the sole survivor of the fleet of river gunboats built by the Union during the Civil War with the object of controlling the lower Mississippi River. Designed by Samuel Pook and built by James B. Eads, it saw limited battle and was sunk on the Yazoo River in 1862 by newly developed…
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The Voyager explorers, which provided scientists and the world with the first detailed pictures of faraway planets, were designed and tested during 1972 to 1977. The two most intelligent machines ever built in the NASA space program, the explorers were launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 1977…
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The Watkins Woolen Mill is among the best preserved examples of a Midwest woolen mill in nineteenth-century United States. Its machinery for preparing, spinning, and weaving wool reflects the existence of well-established textile industry in the country. It was designed and built by Waltus L.…
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The history of this foundry, which was the oldest malleable iron company in continuous operation in the United States for many years, was inseparable from that of the small town of Westmoreland, where neighbors and workers kept time by the foundry bell. The firm was founded as Oakhill Malleable…
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The Wilkinson Mill, situated on the west bank of the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, was built between 1810 and 1811 by machinist Oziel Wilkinson. Constructed in stone rubble, three and one-half stories high, the mill played a critical role in the history of textile technology, in steam power…
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Stationary steam engines, once the prime movers of industry, powered trains, ships, and mills in an age when there was no electric power. By the 19th century, American industry, especially in England, was rapidly outgrowing the capacity of the ater power that had been its principal prime mover.…
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The 1905 Wright Flyer III, built by Wilbur (1867-1912) and Orville (1871-1948) Wright, was the world's first airplane capable of sustained, maneuverable flight. Similar in design to their celebrated first airplane, this machine featured a stronger structure, a larger engine turning new "bent-end…
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The convenient dry-copying process for printed pages is among the truly revolutionary inventions of the century. In 1937 Chester Carlson, a New York patent attorney, developed the concept of applying an electrostatic charge on a plate coated with a photoconductive material. On November 22, 1938…
Read MoreSmaller and cheaper than a triple-expansion vertical engine, the horizontal cross-compound pumping engine, Pump No. 2, ran at relatively slow revolutions and was considered the height of engineering from the 1890s to World War I. This pumping engine at the York Water Company was built by the…
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Wind tunnel testing of aircraft models is essential to determine aerodynamic parameters such as lift and drag. The 5-foot Wright Field wind tunnel is an early example of the modern wind tunnel, well known from the early 1920s to the late 1950s for its contributions to research and the…
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During the 1920s, Edwin A. Link was employed in his father's organ building and repair business. He obtained his pilot's license in 1927 and became convinced that a mechanical device could be built as an inexpensive method to teach basic piloting. Link received three patents on his flight…
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Rapid development of aircraft design in the 1930s required many related innovations, including propeller design. The hydromatic propeller by Hamilton Standard marked a significant advance over the counterweight-type, controllable pitch propeller. The first test flight of the prototype took place…
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The 367-80 is the prototype for most jet transports. Its success was due largely to its mechanical systems, including turbine engines with thrust reversers and noise suppressors, redundant hydraulic control systems, and an improved cabin-pressurization system. Honeycomb flap panels were introduced… Read More
This propulsion wind tunnel (PWT) at Arnold AFB was the first large-scale facility for testing jet and rocket engines in simulated high-speed flight conditions. It has a unique combination of transonic (1955) and supersonic (1960) wind tunnels using a common 236,000 horsepower drive, the world's… Read More
The RL-10, which served as the power plant for NASA's upper-stage Centaur space launch vehicle, was the first rocket engine to use high-energy liquid hydrogen as a fuel. It has provided precisely controlled, reliable power for lunar and planetary explorations. The RL-10 embodied numerous…
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The Pegasus 3 is the earliest surviving example of the prototype engine for vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) jets, namely the Royal Air Force's Harriers and US Marine Corps' AV-8Bs. Owned by the Rolls- Royce Heritage Trust (a company-sponsored history and preservation society), the…
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The largest rocket built at the time of the historic first missions to the moon, the Saturn V carried aloft the 45-ton Apollo spacecraft on earth orbital and lunar missions from 1967 to 1972. It also launched the 120-ton Skylab into earth orbit on May 14, 1973.
Design and…
