Gear Milestones Needed

The American Gear Manufacturers Association (www.agma.org) will be celebrating its centennial in 2016. In preparation for the big party, they are developing a timeline of major milestones of our trade, both technical and commercial. They need your help in making sure that the people and events that shaped the business are accurately remembered. We are lucky to have a number of people around who personally witnessed a lot of that 100 years. Hopefully they will assist in finding the reports or artifacts that predated them. Many companies that were “big” contributors no longer exist and the fate of their archives is not well known. Just this week we learned of some research reports on the development of the allowable stress numbers we still use today. Since AGMA was founded, in part, to assure the public that gears would perform as advertised, the rating formulas and supporting science are “mission-critical.” We cannot lose sight of this duty; AGMA publications are used all around the world to design, build, and analyze geared products. “New” gear concepts with claims of greatly improved capacity are announced every year; most are revamps of ideas previously examined and found lacking. A more accessible history of the trade, as promised by this timeline, would help sort things out. As always, Gear Technology offers free access to its on-line archives. We like to think of ourselves as the “journal of record” for the gear business. The AGMA website has directions on how to submit your timeline information. Our magazine is also interested in hearing your stories on important people and events in the history of the trade. Please contact us via our website.