ASME Chicago Section
Dedicated to promoting the art, science, and practice of mechanical and multidisciplinary engineering across the Greater Chicago area since 1913.
Section Overview & Membership
The Chicago Section today has more than 1200 members. Meetings and events are held multiple times per year featuring expert speakers on topics of current interest, and professional plant tours.
The Chicago area is a source of endless opportunity for professional speakers and interesting tours, and the Chicago Section is never at a loss for an interesting and informative program. Past tours have included such engineering destinations as Chicago Bridge tour, Elmhurst Flood Control Quarry, and Amazon warehouse tour.
The Chicago Section proudly supports student sections at Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Technology, Purdue University Northwest, and Olivet Nazarene University.
Then & History
The Chicago Section was organized in 1913 and re-chartered in 1980 to commemorate the Centennial Year. The Section includes the Calumet Subsection, organized in 1956, and the Skokie Valley Subsection, organized in 1963. The Chicago Section at one time included the Fox Valley Subsection, which was organized in 1956 and achieved full section status in 1975.
Chicago hosted the annual national meetings in 1980 (the centennial year for ASME), 1988, and 1994. The 102nd president of the national ASME was Chicago’s own F.W. Scott, who served 1983–84. Chicago members Carl Tack and David Blaine each served as chairman of the Rail Transportation Division.
Monthly meetings in the earlier years drew large attendances as many of the members worked downtown. Members met for many years in the Engineers’ Club in the John Crerar Library Building on Randolph Street. According to Chicago Section veterans David Blaine and Ozzie Rothchild, in those days 100 was a poor turnout, and attendance more often ran as high as 250. As businesses began moving to the suburbs and life in general became more complicated, it became harder to draw people to downtown meetings. Directors met for many years at the Union League Club.
The Chicago Section hosted historic sesquicentennial and centennial national meetings for ASME with extended celebrations of mechanical engineering meetings, programs, and tours. During the centennial, Chicago Mayor Jayne Byrne declared the week of November 16 as American Society of Mechanical Engineers Centennial Week.
Three Historic ASME Landmarks
The Chicago Section claims three important ASME Historic Landmarks:
1. Pioneer Zephyr Winton 8-201-A Diesel Engine (1934)
Accepted as a landmark in 1980, this engine is displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry. Built for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad in 1934, the Pioneer Zephyr ushered in a new era in travel by rail. Its exterior was a streamlined, stainless-steel creation resulting from wind-tunnel tests at MIT. Powered by a revolutionary diesel-electric engine that would eventually replace traditional steam locomotives, the Zephyr could travel up to 120 mph, measured 197 feet long, weighed approximately 208,000 pounds, and seated 72 passengers.
2. Railroad-wheel Dynamometer
Accepted as a landmark in 1988, this dynamometer is now located at the Association of American Railroads Transportation Technical Center in Pueblo, Colorado. Until 1996, it was housed at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The dynamometer tests full-size railroad wheels under controlled conditions exceeding normal service. It was contracted from the Adamson United Company of Akron, Ohio, by U.S. Steel Corporation in the early 1950s to evaluate wrought-steel wheels, axles, and cast-iron brake shoes before being acquired by the AAR and moved to Chicago in 1983.
3. State Line Generating Unit No. 1
Designated a landmark in 1977, State Line Unit No. 1 is located in Hammond, Indiana, at the Illinois-Indiana border. Rating at 208 megawatts, it was the largest turbine-generator in the world from 1929 to 1954, serving the massive industrial district from Chicago to Gary. Initiated by Samuel Insull, president of Commonwealth Edison, the plant was situated on 90 acres of fill on Lake Michigan. Consulting engineers were Sargent & Lundy; architects were Graham, Anderson, Probst & White; and General Electric furnished the 208-MW turbine generator. In December 1953, it was retired as champion by a 213-MW turbine-generator in Ohio and has since been dismantled.
Information on these Chicago landmarks has been obtained from members and from the publication Landmarks in Mechanical Engineering.