1950-1959

The Belle Isle gas turbine was installed in 1949 and was the first gas turbine built in the United States for the purpose of generating electric power. Its low cost and consistency aroused considerable interest in the electric utility industry, both here and abroad. This led ultimately to the wide-scale adoption of the gas turbine by electric utilities. The Landmark gas turbine was delivered in April 1949 to the Belle Isle Station* of the Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company in Oklahoma City. The Belle Isle turbine, together with a second, identical unit installed in 1952, served the Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company for 31 years. It was eventually withdrawn from service in August 1980 with the closing of the Belle Isle Station.

Gas turbines are internal combustion engines, just like the automobile engine, except that rotating compressors and expansion turbines† are used instead of a piston reciprocating in a cylinder. In an internal combustion engine air is drawn into the machine and compressed, fuel is added to the compressed air, and the resulting mixture is burned, thereby raising the temperature of the gas; the hot gases are then expanded, i.e., their temperature and pressure are lowered by withdrawing the energy supplied by the burning fuel. This extracted energy is used in the compression process and to provide energy to propel an aeroplane, a locomotive, generate electricity or any other uses. In the reciprocating internal combustion engine, such as that used to drive a car, the various processes take place in a cylinder with a reciprocating piston. This engine operates in a non-flow mode, in the sense that all the processes occur in one component. The same processes can be arranged to be carried out in separate components; namely, a compressor, a combustion chamber, and an expansion machine. If a rotary compressor and a rotary expansion engine, that is, an expansion turbine, are used, then the device is known as a gas turbine

Tags

Elecctricity

Gas Turbine

Thumb

UC-Blackwelder Tomato Harvester

Admin — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 10:45:38 +0000

UC-Blackwelder Tomato Harvester

Krishna Kanth Mon, 04/02/2018 - 06:45

Society

ASABE

Main Category

Agricultural & Biological

Era

1950-1959

Date Created

1949

Address1

Western Center for Agricultural Equipment

Address2

Hills Dr

City

Davis

State

Country

USA

Zip

95616

Website

https://www.asabe.org/awards-landmarks/asabe-historic-landmarks/uc-blackwelder-…

Creator

Hanna, Jack

In 1942, University of California, Davis (UCD) biologist, Jack Hanna recognized the need for breeding tomato varieties that ripen uniformly and withstand the rigors of mechanical harvesting. In 1949, UCD agricultural engineer Coby Lorenzen and Hanna began developing a mechanical tomato harvester. Parallel efforts by others, notably those started in 1957 by agricultural engineer Bill Stout and horticulturist Stan Ries of Michigan State University, eventually resulted in several different harvesting mechanisms. In the late 1950s, UCD agricultural engineer Steven J. Sluka developed a vine separator for Lorenzen's machine. The modified harvester was successfully tested on the Lester Heringer farm and Heringer convinced Blackwelder Manufacturing Co. of Rio Vista, CA to commercialize the UCD design. The resulting machine became the dominant tomato harvester in the world and revolutionized the industry. Methods for harvesting processing tomatoes in the USA changed from essentially all manual in 1963 to primarily mechanical by 1968. There were great concerns about the displacement of hand labor by mechanical harvesting. However, the machines cut harvesting costs by half and led to large increases in both tomato acreage and tonnage within and eventually outside the USA.

Skid Steer Loader

Admin — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 10:45:22 +0000

Skid Steer Loader

Krishna Kanth Mon, 04/02/2018 - 06:45

Society

ASABE

Main Category

Agricultural & Biological

Sub Category

Mechanization

Era

1950-1959

Date Created

1957

Address1

Bonanzaville Historic Museum

City

West Fargo

State

Country

USA

Zip

58078

Website

https://www.asabe.org/awards-landmarks/asabe-historic-landmarks/skid-steer-load…

Creator

Keller, Cyril and Louis

Brothers Cyril and Louis Keller designed and built the first small, lightweight, three-wheel, front-end loader in their machinist-blacksmith shop in Rothsay, Minnesota. A local farmer wanted to mechanize cleaning manure from his obstacle-filled, two-story turkey barn. The machine, first used in 1957, was able to turn completely around within its own length. Melroe Manufacturing Company, Gwinner, ND purchased the rights to the Keller loader and hired the Kellers to continue development of the loader in 1958. The first four-wheel, true skid-steer loader was the M400 manufactured in 1960. The "Bobcat" name was first used in 1962 on the M440. The skid-steer loader's utility comes from its turning ability and its many versatile attachments. Bobcat pioneered the durable and dependable hydrostatic drive for the loader. The skid-steer loader, used worldwide in continually evolving applications, has reduced the need for human labor and improved the speed and economy of projects in agricultural, construction, manufacturing, shipping, and landscaping industries.

Tags

Agriculture

Construction

Loader

Image Credit

Courtesy WikiCommons/Tennen-Gas (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Image Caption

A modern skid steer loader, Toyota Jobsun 4SDK6 model

Roll Over Protection Structure (ROPS)

Admin — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 09:02:30 +0000

Roll Over Protection Structure (ROPS)

Krishna Kanth Mon, 04/02/2018 - 05:02

Society

ASABE

Main Category

Agricultural & Biological

Sub Category

Vehicles

Era

1950-1959

Date Created

1956

Address1

John Deere Product Engineering Center

Address2

6725 Cedar Heights Dr

City

Cedar Falls

State

Country

USA

Zip

50613

Website

https://www.asabe.org/awards-landmarks/asabe-historic-landmarks/rops-21.aspx

The First Agricultural Tractor Roll-Over Protection Structure (Rops) In The USA Resulted From Research By Lloyd H. Lamouria, Ralph R. Parks And Coby Lorensen At The Agricultural Engineering Department Of The University Of California At Davis. It Was Designed And Successfully Tested In The Summer Of 1956. It Was Exhibited And Reported At The Annual Meeting Of The Pacific Coast Section Of The American Society Of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE) In December 1956. Warren I. Hanson, Safety Coordinator, N. Dakota Highway Dept., Took The Next Bold Step In Early 1959, When He Instigated A Program That Resulted In Seven Rops Being Built On Tractor Mowers That Year, And In 1960 All 190 Were So Equipped.

Wesley F. Buchele Then Organized The First Rops Symposium At The ASAE Winter Meeting, Dec. 1962, Which Recommended Their Immediate Adoption. Charles S. Morrison Of Deere & Company Began Commercial Development Of The Agricultural Rops. Merlin Hansen Supervised The Design And Development Of The Rops By John Edman, R.D. Miller, Dave Bucher And Others At The John Deere Product Engineering /P, Waterloo, Iowa. Deere's Unique Two-Post Rops Design Made The Structure More Compatible With Farm Implements, Such As Front-End Loaders And Cultivators. With The First Announcement Of The "Roll-Gard" With Seat Belts On June 4, 1966, Affordable Operator Protection With Proven Performance Was Made Available To Customers.Patent Rights And Engineering Data Were Donated To The Public. Under The Leadership Of Merlin Hansen, The Design Became An Industry Standard. Operator Acceptance Of The Rops Was Further Increased By Incorporating It Into An Environmentally-Controlled Cab. Use Of This Agricultural Tractor Rops Has Proven To Be Effective In Reducing Serious Injuries To The People Who Have Made American Agricultural Productivity The Envy Of The World. Dedicated By The American Society Of Agricultural Engineers 1986

Tags

Safety

Image Credit

Courtesy Wikicommons/BulldozerD11 (CC BY 3.0)

Image Caption

Ford Tractor with fitted ROPS bar

1955: The Making of the Polio Vaccine

Edwin Grosvenor — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 22:30:20 +0000

1955: The Making of the Polio Vaccine Thu, 09/27/2012 - 18:30

First Wearable Cardiac Pacemaker

Taiyuan Pai — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:35:21 +0000

First Wearable Cardiac Pacemaker

Mon, 08/20/2012 - 11:35

Society

Main Category

Era

Date Created

Location Country

Coordinates

43.660421, -79.389335

Address1

C. H. Best Institute

Address2

112 College St

City

Toronto

State

Country

USA

Website

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:First_Wearable_Cardiac_Pacemak…

Creator

Bakken, Earl E.

During the winter of 1957-58, Earl E. Bakken developed the first wearable transistorized pacemaker, the request of heart surgeon, Dr. C. Walton Lillehei. As earlier pacemakers were AC-powered, this battery-powered device liberated patients from their power-cord tethers. The wearable pacemaker was a significant step in the evolution to fully-implantable units.

The external transistorized pacemaker was an important step in the transition from desk-top to fully-implantable units. Previous to 1957, cardiac pacemakers were bulky, vacuum-tube units operated by AC power. Patient mobility was greatly restricted, and power failures could be disastrous. Late in 1957, Dr. C. Walton Lillehei, a leading pioneer in open-heart surgery at the University of Minnesota, asked Earl E. Bakken, co-founder of Medtronic, Inc., to develop a battery-operated pacemaker. Bakken produced a prototype about 4 weeks later that Lillehei almost immediately used for treating children who had developed heart block after surgery .This wearable, transistorized unit was produced commercially as the Medtronic 5800 pacemaker and liberated hundreds of patients from their power-cord tethers, demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of long-term pacing.

Tags

University of Minnesota

Image Credit

Courtesy Professor Marko Turina, University Hospital, Zurich (CC BY 3.0)

Image Caption

Arne H. W. Larsson (26th May 1915 to 28th December 2001) was the first recipient of an implantable pacemaker. He received the first device in 1958 and had a total of 26 devices during his life. He became an advocate for patients needing pacemakers, campaigning for greater funding and research in this area.

First Television Broadcast in Western Canada

Taiyuan Pai — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:26:20 +0000

First Television Broadcast in Western Canada

Mon, 08/20/2012 - 10:26

Society

Main Category

Era

Date Created

Location Country

Coordinates

49.3627, -122.951052

Address1

CBC Broadcasting Site, Mount Seymour

Address2

1700 Mount Seymour Road

City

North Vancouver

State

Country

Canada

Zip

V7G 1L3

Website

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:First_Television_Broadcast_in_…

Creator

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

On 16 December 1953, the first television broadcast in Western Canada was transmitted from this site by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's CBUT Channel 2. The engineering experience gained here was instrumental in the subsequent establishment of the more than one thousand public and private television broadcasting sites that serve Western Canada today.

The CBUT broadcasting site on Mount Seymour (North Vancouver, British Columbia) was both the first television broadcasting site in Western Canada and the first high elevation/mountain top broadcasting site in Canada. The opening broadcast featured special launch ceremonies at 6 pm and was followed by a CBC newscast at 7 pm. (Western Canada refers to the four provinces west of the Great Lakes: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It is physically separated from Central Canada (Ontario and Quebec) by the Great Lakes and the relatively inhospitable Canadian Shield.)

At the time of the first broadcast, the establishment of a television station in Vancouver was seen as an important contribution to Canadian sovereignty and cultural identity. The first broadcast and associated ceremonies were major events. At the same time, CBUT provided an important training ground for and contributed to the principles and practices that guided the engineers who went on to deploy the over 1000 public and private broadcasting sites that serve Western Canada today.

Although VHF transmitting sites had already been established in Western Canada for FM broadcasting, these sites were generally located atop tall buildings in urban areas, e.g., VE9FG (later CBU-FM), a 1-kW FM broadcast station that became operational on 21 November 1947 and which was located at the Hotel Vancouver in downtown Vancouver.

The three television broadcasting sites that had been established in Canada previously (in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa) were also installed at relatively low elevations. For the CBC managers of the day, establishing the network’s fourth television transmitter so far West and at a high elevation and a remote location was a bold and significant decision.

The relatively complicated topography of the Lower Mainland of British Columbia required that considerable care be taken to choose a broadcasting site that would provide the best coverage. Predicting and evaluating the coverage of a VHF broadcast transmitter in mountainous terrain is much different from the corresponding task for the MF broadcast transmitters that had been installed at various low-level locations throughout the Lower Mainland during the 1930‘s and 1940‘s.

Tags

First Semiconductor Integrated Circuit (IC)

Taiyuan Pai — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:10:05 +0000

First Semiconductor Integrated Circuit (IC)

Mon, 08/20/2012 - 10:10

Society

Main Category

Era

Date Created

Location Country

Coordinates

32.9303, -96.754364

Address1

Texas Instruments, North Campus

Address2

13532 North Central Expressway

City

Dallas

State

Country

USA

Zip

75243

Website

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:First_Semiconductor_Integrated…

Creator

Kilby, Jack S.

On 12 September 1958, Jack S. Kilby demonstrated the first working integrated circuit to managers at Texas Instruments. This was the first time electronic components were integrated onto a single substrate. This seminal device consisted of a phase shift oscillator circuit on a tiny bar of germanium measuring 7/16” by 1/16” (11.1 mm by 1.6 mm). Today, integrated circuits are the fundamental building blocks of virtually all electronic equipment.

The integrated circuit is the invention that enabled the modern electronics industry. Originally used in military applications, it quickly became the core of commercial and consumer electronics, and moved into medical equipment, household appliances, automobiles and even musical greeting cards. It is estimated that the average person encounters thousands of integrated circuits every day. Because of this invention, the electronics industry has grown from $29 billion in 1961 to $1500 billion today.

This invention set in motion the technology that would enable the second industrial revolution, and its in-situ form made it possible for future generations of integrated circuits to become orders of magnitude smaller and more powerful. Today, the integrated circuit is the fundamental building block of all electronic equipment. The integrated circuit was the answer to a difficult technological problem known as the “tyranny of numbers.” At the time, the recently invented transistor was inspiring engineers to design evermore complex electronic circuits and equipment containing hundreds or thousands of discrete components such as transistors, diodes, rectifiers and capacitors. But the problem was that these components still had to be interconnected to form electronic circuits, and hand-soldering thousands of components to thousands of bits of wire was expensive and time-consuming. It was also unreliable; every soldered joint was a potential source of trouble. The challenge was to find cost-effective, reliable ways of interconnecting these components and producing them. It wasn’t until the invention of the integrated circuit by Jack Kilby that this could be done and electronic equipment could start its dramatic course of commercialization and miniaturization. In 1976, Kilby provided insight into his thinking by explaining, “Further thought led me to the conclusion that semiconductors were all that were really required — that resistors and capacitors [passive devices], in particular, could be made from the same material as the active devices [transistors]. I also realized that, since all of the components could be made of a single material, they could also be made in situ interconnected to form a complete circuit." The invention caused a lot of buzz and controversy in the first few years as it was shown at trade shows. Recognizing the need for a "demonstration product" to speed widespread use of the integrated circuit, TI management challenged Kilby to design a calculator as powerful as the large, electro-mechanical desktop models of the day, but small enough to fit in a coat pocket. The resulting electronic hand-held calculator, of which Kilby is a co-inventor, successfully commercialized the integrated circuit.

Tags

Image Credit

Courtesy Wikipedia/Texas Instruments

Image Caption

Jack Kilby's original integrated circuit.

Experimental Breeder Reactor I

Taiyuan Pai — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:39:37 +0000

Experimental Breeder Reactor I

Wed, 08/15/2012 - 12:39

Society

Main Category

Sub Category

Era

Date Created

Location Country

Coordinates

43.51132, -113.0064

Address1

EBR-I Building

Address2

U.S. Highway 20-26

City

Arco

State

Country

USA

Zip

83415

Website

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_I…

Creator

Zinn, Walter

At this facility on 20 December 1951 electricity was first generated from the heat produced by a sustained nuclear reaction providing steam to a turbine generator. This event inaugurated the nuclear power industry in the United States. On 4 June 1953 EBR-I provided the first proof of "breeding" capability, producing one atom of nuclear fuel for each atom burned, and later produced electricity using a plutonium core reactor.

The idea for a breeder reactor (a reactor that could produce more fuel than it uses) first occurred to scientists working on the nation's wartime atomic energy program in the early 1940s. Experimental evidence indicated that the breeding of nuclear fuel was possible in a properly designed reactor, but time and resources were not then available to pursue the idea.

After World War II, the newly established Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy) assigned some of the nation's nuclear skills and resources to developing peaceful uses of the atom. The large bodies of uranium ore found in the 1950s were unknown then, and, since uranium was in very short supply, it was decided that the first power reactor would attempt to prove the theory of fuel breeding.

EBR-I construction began in late 1949 at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho, now called the Idaho a National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). Early in 1951, a few months before the EBR-I building was completed, nine staff members from the Atomic Energy Commission's Argonne National Laboratory arrived on the scene to install the reactor, which they had designed at their lab near Chicago. The first attempt to operate the new reactor, in May of that year, was not successful. It was determined that there was not enough fuel in the core. Acquiring additional uranium and fabricating slightly larger fuel rods took nearly three months. Then on August 24, Walter Zinn and his Argonne staff brought EBR-I to criticality (a controlled, self- sustaining chain reaction) with a core about the size of a football. Four months of low power operation followed while the operators studied their new creation.

On December 20, 1951, the first historic experiment at EBR-I began. The reactor was started up and the power gradually increased over several hours. At 1:50 p.m., the first usable amount of electricity ever generated from nuclear power began flowing from the turbine generator. Four light bulbs glowed brightly to inaugurate the birth of nuclear-generated power. The next day, the experiment was repeated, and sufficient electricity to power the EBR-I building was generated.

Tags

Electricity

Nuclear Power

Argonne

Image Credit

Courtesy Wikipedia/US Department of Energy

Image Caption

The four lit light bulbs demonstrated the first use of nuclear electricity at Argonne National Laboratory.

Electronic Technology for Space Rocket Launches

Taiyuan Pai — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:13:12 +0000

Electronic Technology for Space Rocket Launches

Wed, 08/15/2012 - 12:13

Society

Main Category

Era

Date Created

Location Country

Coordinates

28.661671, -80.742073

Address1

Kennedy Space Center

City

Brevard County

State

Country

USA

Zip

32899

Website

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:Electronic_Technology_for_Spac…

The demonstrated success in space flight is the result of electronic technology developed at Cape Canaveral, the J. F. Kennedy Space Center, and other sites. A wide variety of advances in radar tracking, data telemetry, instrumentation, space-to-ground communications, on-board guidance, and real-time computation were employed to support the U.S. space program. These and other electronic developments provided infrastructure necessary for the successful landing of men on the moon in July 1969 and their safe return to earth.

The advent of the Cold War and the increase in civilian air traffic spurred continued development in radar and its use in detection, guidance, navigation, telemetry, and remote control.In addition to the problems of competing with the Soviets in military aircraft, missiles, and manned and unmanned spacecraft, the Western nations worked out the political and economic aspects of scheduled international air travel. Technological advances in the early 1950s included pulse-compression radar, which achieved high resolution with the required large-signal bandwidth. These advances and others eventually led to pulse-doppler radar. Synthetic aperture, or ´side-looking´ radar improved the cross-range resolution. Powering these devices from aircraft engines was also a challenge that was eventually answered by the development of a hydro-mechanical constant-speed drive. These inventions led to extremely complex military systems, for example the U.S. Air Force's Bomarc surface-to-air missile.They also allowed airborne weather avoidance and the beginnings of ground-based electronic weather observation.

While advances in civilian and military aviation continued, the late 1950s created a new theater for technological development and completely changed the landscape of aeronautical electronics.In October 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, and the race for space had begun.The ground had been paved in 1946 when a team from the Army Signal Corps bounced a radar beam off the moon and detected the echo. Although originally justified by military uses and national prestige, the communications and navigational uses of space soon became obvious. For example, although Sputnik broadcast only a beacon signal, it was discovered that its Doppler shift revealed the position of the observer. Within the United States, although the Department of Defense continued to receive a great deal of funding for both air and space electronic research, the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), in existence since 1916, became the civilian-based National Aeronautics and Space Agency (later Administration)-NASA!

On 12 April 1961 the Soviets sent Yuri Gagarin into space, after which U.S. President John Kennedy pledged that America would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.The complexity of space systems needed for manned flight dwarfed even that of the most sophisticated military systems of the 1950s.For example, telemetry had to be expanded to include not just instrument signals but the vital signs of the astronauts. Radar could help lunar landers determine their altitude and velocity relative to the surface and surface. Ground-based digital computers calculated trajectories to precision far beyond what had been possible with analog computers.At planetary distances, one has to account for the finite speed of light.On manned missions particularly, space-borne digital computers performed attitude control.They permitted new functions to be done on-board, such as telemetry and redundancy management. One of the greatest technological achievements of all human history took place in July 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon.

The unmanned exploitation of space for telecommunications had begun with bouncing signals off the moon, and by the end of the 1950s people had heard U.S. President Eisenhower´s pre-recorded Christmas message, broadcast from the SCORE satellite in 1958.In 1960, the ECHO balloon was launched to replace the moon as a passive communication relay. TIROS I, the first weather satellite, and Transit, a navigation satellite used by the U.S. Navy to aid submarines, were launched in the mid 1960s.TELSTAR, a commercial venture by AT&T, reached orbit in July 1962 and demonstrated real-time active communication via satellite, including the first transatlantic television broadcast. These technological breakthroughs led to important international political developments in the sharing of space and spectrum. Geosynchronous orbit as a method for global communication had first been proposed by Arthur C. Clarke in 1945. Early Bird, the first Intelsat satellite, began the era of geosynchronous satellite communications in 1965.The 1960s also saw the first unmanned planetary probes, with the launching of Mariner 2 on 27 August 1962, and ground-based radio telescopes first listening for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.

There were also developments in military and civilian aviation, particularly in the increased use of solid-state digital systems. Space, military, and civilian aviation, administratively unified in the Soviet Union, also came together in the United States in the growth of a tremendous aerospace industry with close ties to both NASA and the Department of Defense. Sophisticated innovations occurred in navigation and guidance, such as the coaxial magnetron, with its improved oscillator stability, and over-the-horizon radar.

Tags

Image Credit

Courtesy Wikipedia/NASA

Image Caption

A culmination of research in radar tracking, data telemetry, instrumentation, space-to-ground communications, on-board guidance, and real-time computation: the 1969 moon landing.