Society of Automobile Engineers
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| Founded | 1905 |
|---|---|
| Type | Professional organization |
| Focus | Automotive, Automobile, Aerospace, Commercial vehicle. |
| Location | |
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Area served
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Worldwide. |
| Method | Industry standards, Membership, Conferences, Publications, Professional Development. |
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Members
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138,000 |
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Key people
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Andrew L. Riker Henry Ford Thomas Edison Glenn Martin Orville Wright Charles Kettering |
| Website | www |
SAE International, initially established as the Society of Automotive Engineers, is a U.S.-based, globally active professional association and standards developing organization for engineering professionals in various industries. Principal emphasis is placed on transport industries such as automotive, aerospace, and commercial vehicles.
SAE International has over 138,000 global members. Membership is granted to individuals, rather than companies. Aside from its standardization efforts, SAE International also devotes resources to projects and programs in STEM education, professional certification, and collegiate design competitions.
SAE is commonly used in North America to indicate United States customary units (USCS or USC) measuring systems in automotive and construction tools. SAE is used as a tool marking to indicate that they are not metric (SI) based tools, as the two systems are incompatible. A common mistake is to use SAE interchangeably with the word "Imperial" units (British), which is not the same as the USCS standard that SAE uses.
In the early 1900s there were dozens of automobile manufacturers in the United States, and many more worldwide. Auto manufacturers and parts companies joined trade groups that promoted business. A desire to solve common technical design problems and develop engineering standards was emerging. Engineers in the automobile business expressed a desire to have "free exchange of ideas" in order to expand their individual technical knowledge base.
Two magazine publishers, Peter Heldt of The Horseless Age, and Horace Swetland of The Automobile were advocates of the concepts for SAE. Heldt wrote an editorial in June 1902 in which he said, "Now there is a noticeable tendency for automobile manufacturers to follow certain accepted lines of construction, technical questions constantly arise which seek solution from the cooperation of the technical men connected with the industry. These questions could best be dealt with by a technical society. The field of activity for this society would be the purely technical side of automobiles."
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Wikipedia