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1 ADevelopment
Brief History of the
of Chain
EARLY DEVELOPMENTS
Chains have been used for centuries to drive machines and move materials on conveyors and up
elevators. In 225 B.C., Philo described a chain-driven water lift, as shown in Figure 1-1. This was
really a form of bucket elevator. Leonardo da Vinci sketched the chain designs shown in Figure 1-2
in the 1500s. Some of those designs are remarkably similar to modern bar link, leaf, and silent chains.
Figure 1-3 shows Ramelli’s waterwheel-driven pump from the 16th century, which used a chain to
drive the pump. There are probably many other examples of chains used in drives and conveyors
before the 19th century. But modern chain development really began in the 1800s.

COG CHAIN
Cog chain was developed in the early 1800s to transmit power or motion between the shafts of
treadmills to water elevators, weaving looms, and harvesting machinery. This chain, shown in
Figure 1-4, consisted of rectangular cast links connected by looped and riveted iron bands. It became
known as cog chain because the links contacted the sprocket tooth, or “cog,” as it was then called.
This chain was used to mechanize farm implements, but it broke easily and was difficult to repair
in the field.

CAST DETACHABLE CHAIN

Cast detachable chain (Figure 1-5) was introduced in 1873 and overcame many of the problems
of cog chain. This chain was made of simple identical cast links that were easily coupled and
uncoupled by hand. It greatly improved the performance of power takeoffs from cleated bull wheels
in contact with the ground under horse-drawn farm implements. Thus, agricultural equipment was
soon mechanized and the use of chain for drives rapidly spread to other major industries.
This basic detachable chain design is one of the early chain concepts that have come down to
us today almost unchanged. Malleable iron and fabricated steel detachable chain is still in use today
and is still made by some manufacturers.
By the late 1800s manufacturers developed cast attachment links and installed them at intervals
in basic chains. Figure 1-6 shows a cast detachable attachment link. Users could bolt malleable
iron buckets to these attachment links and, when used vertically, it became a bucket elevator for
loose bulk materials. By the 1890s, manufacturers made and sold bucket elevators like the one
shown in Figure 1-7 as a standard machine.
An apron conveyor was made by bolting slats or flights rather than buckets to the cast attach-
ments to convey bulk materials horizontally or up mild inclines. Drag conveyors were made by
using different types of attachments and scraper flights in a trough to convey bulk materials up
steep inclines as well as horizontally. Figure 1-8 shows an early version of a drag conveyor from
a manufacturer’s catalog.
The modern cast and fabricated steel descendants of the detachable chains discussed previously
are outside the scope of this book.

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2 Standard Handbook of Chains

FIGURE 1-1 Philo’s chain driven water lift.

FIGURE 1-2 Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of chain.

CAST PINTLE CHAIN

The next important development after cast detachable chain was the cast pintle chain, shown in
Figure 1-9. Pintle chain is the direct ancestor of both standard roller and engineering steel chains.
It has a “closed-barrel” design, heavier link sections, and steel pins or pintles. Pintle chain evolved
from cast detachable chain to withstand heavier loads, higher speeds, and more severe operating
conditions in both drives and conveyors. The original pintle chain design was soon modified to
meet special needs. For example, “shoes” were added to provide greater resistance to sliding wear,
as illustrated by the links shown in Figure 1-10. This design is still widely used today.
Short-pitch pintle chains were used for both drives and conveyors. However, new chains with
a longer pitch were soon developed for conveyors. Not only did the longer pitches give these chains

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A Brief History of the Development of Chain 3

FIGURE 1-3 Ramelli’s waterwheel-driven pump.

FIGURE 1-4 An early cog chain.

better economics because of fewer joints, they also provided more space for attachment wings or
more complex designs, such as in Figure 1-11.
Soon, exposed hardened steel bushings were installed in the barrels of the cast links to provide
increased resistance to wear. Links of this type, shown in Figure 1-12, worked quite well in abrasive
materials and became the standard bucket elevator chain used during the first third of the 20th
century.
Next, it was found that rollers revolving on the link barrels greatly reduced the power needs
on long conveyors by eliminating the sliding friction of the links on conveyor ways or tracks. The

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4 Standard Handbook of Chains

FIGURE 1-5 Cast detachable chain.

FIGURE 1-6 A cast detachable attachment link.

links were split through the chain centerline perpendicular to the axes of the pins to accommodate
the rollers. This design is shown in Figure 1-13.
By the early 1900s, the cast pintle chain had become an efficient and dependable product for
power transmission, conveying, and elevating. Cast chains are not discussed further in this book,
but they are historically important because they are the ancestors of both roller and engineering
steel chains.

PRECISION ROLLER CHAIN

A few years after cast detachable chain was introduced, a chain made of all steel parts was introduced
for driving bicycles. A patent for roller chain was issued in 1880. That was the beginning of the
roller chain industry. Figure 1-14 shows a length of standard roller chain. Figure 1-15 shows a
cutaway view of the component parts of a roller chain as it engages a sprocket.
There was little development of roller chain for the first decade or so, but much more devel-
opment was done in the 1890s. By the early 1900s, roller chains drove the wheels of safety bicycles
(Figure 1-16), as well as automobiles, trucks, and the propellers of the Wright Brothers’ airplane
that flew at Kitty Hawk (Figure 1-17).

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A Brief History of the Development of Chain 5

FIGURE 1-7 An early bucket elevator using cast chain.

FIGURE 1-8 A drag conveyor from the 1890s.

FIGURE 1-9 Cast pintle chain.

FIGURE 1-10 Cast pintle chain with wear shoes.

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6 Standard Handbook of Chains

FIGURE 1-11 An M-3 attachment link for a cast pintle chain.

FIGURE 1-12 Pintle chain with hardened steel bushings.

FIGURE 1-13 Pintle chain with cast rollers.

FIGURE 1-14 Typical roller chain.

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A Brief History of the Development of Chain 7

FIGURE 1-15 Roller chain construction and operation.

FIGURE 1-16 Chain drive on a safety bicycle (1895).

The chains developed in the late 1800s were a key component in the development of vehicles
and other industrial equipment. They met or exceeded the needs of their time in terms of load-
carrying capacity, speed of operation, and wear life. However, development of the machines of
which they were a part occurred so quickly that the early designs had to be constantly upgraded.
There was a great demand for large amounts of chain for bicycles, and soon for motorcycles,
automobiles, and trucks. That sparked organized methods of manufacturing that led to the modern
chain industry. Figure 1-18 shows modern chain drives in a machine.
Two major factors combined to make the roller chain industry what it is today: automation and
standardization. Automation helped manufacturers meet the demand for the large amounts of high-
quality chain that were used on machines made by other industries. Manufacturing equipment, such
as punch presses and automatic screw machines, ran long hours at high speeds to make component

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8 Standard Handbook of Chains

FIGURE 1-17 Roller chain drove the propellers on the Wright Brothers’ first airplane.

FIGURE 1-18 Typical roller chain drives in a machine.

parts. Those parts were then fed into automated high-speed assembly machines that produced
finished chain.
Standard dimensions and capacities ensured that roller chains would fit and operate as the
designer planned. Standard dimensions also ensured that links and chain from one manufacturer
would fit sprockets and connect to chain from another manufacturer. This permitted many manu-
facturers of roller chains to participate in the then booming market.
The result was that the industry soon became known as the precision roller chain industry.
Efforts to standardize, beginning as early as 1913, led to the precision roller chain industry being
one of the first in the world to have published standards available to designers and others concerned
with roller chains. The basic series of roller chains—precision power transmission roller
chains—were the first roller chains to be covered in an American National Standard, ASME B29.1
(then ASA B29a) in 1930. Since then, several varieties of roller chains have been standardized,
and they will be covered in subsequent chapters of this book.

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A Brief History of the Development of Chain 9

FIGURE 1-19 Typical engineering steel chains with rollers.

ENGINEERING STEEL CHAIN

Engineering steel chains were first developed in the 1880s. They were developed for greater strength,
speed, and shock resistance, and for better dimensional control than could be obtained from cast
pintle chains. Early engineering steel chains were designed for difficult conveying applications.
Just as with roller chains, engineering steel chains were developed as all-steel products fabricated
from rolled shapes. One exception was that rollers, particularly flanged rollers, were made of cast
iron, and this exception has continued to the present.
The early engineering steel chains were taken directly from cast pintle chains. They were
designed with the same pitches and similar dimensions as cast chains so that the steel chains would
fit identical sprockets. This meant that higher strength steel chains could be substituted for cast
chains when necessary without having to change sprockets.
Larger sizes of engineering steel chains were soon developed. Pitch, strength, wear life, and
carrying capacity were increased to meet the heavy-duty needs of industry. For convenient and practical
attachment spacing, many conveyor class engineering steel chains were made with a pitch size an
even increment of 1 foot. Typical sizes, as manufactured for many years, are 4-, 6-, 9-, 12-, and 18-
in. pitches. Many of these designs have identical joint details and are available in three or more of
the standard pitches, with a wide range of attachment types available.
Most engineering steel chains were developed to operate dependably in the most demanding
conditions. Many classes of engineering steel chains are covered by the ASME B29 series of
standards, and those standard chains are often available from manufacturers’ stocks. However, an
important part of the engineering steel chain market is special chains for unique installations or to
meet unusual designs needs.
There are many general types of engineering steel chains, and some of those covered in this
book are shown in Figure 1-19 to Figure 1-22. Those with steel rollers are perhaps the most widely
used on both drives and conveyors. The bushed, rollerless style meets the needs of many conveyor
and bucket elevator applications. Welded steel versions of the basic cast chains are now quite
popular, and a simple bar-link type is used for slow-moving conveyors and tension linkages. Each
of these types is illustrated and described in detail in a subsequent chapter.
It is only in the past few decades that certain engineering steel chains have been standardized
so that recognized standards could be issued. The first engineering steel chains to be covered by
an ANSI standard were heavy-duty offset sidebar power transmission roller chains (ASME B29.10).
That was soon followed by standards covering steel bushed rollerless chains (ASME B29.12) and

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10 Standard Handbook of Chains

FIGURE 1-20 Bushed rollerless engineering steel chain.

FIGURE 1-21 Welded steel version of pintle chain.

FIGURE 1-22 Bar-link, or block and bar, style engineering steel chains.

heavy-duty roller-type conveyor chains (ASME B29.15). Since then, several varieties of engineering
steel chains have been standardized, and these are covered in subsequent chapters of this book.

SILENT CHAIN
Early designs of silent chain may be seen in Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches from the 1500s. However,
the first notable commercial use of silent chain was not until 1843 in the SS Great Britain. Sir
Isambard Kingdom Brunel supervised the building of the Great Britain, and it was a revolutionary
ship design in many ways (Figure 1-23). It was the first seagoing iron steamship, the first propeller-
driven steamship to cross the Atlantic, and the first vessel driven by inverted-tooth, or silent, chain.
Two 1800 HP steam engines drove the ship. The silent chain drive delivered power from the engines
to the propeller shaft by way of large wooden-tooth sprockets (Figure 1-24). Propeller speed was
a mere 53 rpm, stepped up from an engine output speed of only 18 rpm. The chain was a massive,
five-strand assembly that weighed about 7 tons. No record remains of the chain’s pitch, but this
first commercially applied silent chain may still be the largest ever constructed.

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A Brief History of the Development of Chain 11

FIGURE 1-23 The SS Great Britain of 1845. It used the first silent chain drive of importance.

FIGURE 1-24 The silent chain drive of the SS Great Britain.

From 1895 to about 1925, the chain industry greatly improved the design of silent chains.
Manufacturers in Europe and the United States developed and patented unique chain joints that
increased service life and load carrying capacity. From the 1930s on, silent chain was used in a
variety of industrial applications, including drives in paper and textile mills, flour and feed mills,
printing presses, industrial fans and blowers, pumps, and machine tools. It was also commonly
used as a timing chain in early automobile engines.
Throughout the 20th century, the industry improved material quality, processing technology,
and chain designs to increase the load and speed capacity of silent chain. That led to its being used
in many demanding industrial and automotive applications, particularly those requiring a compact,
high-speed, quiet drive (Figure 1-25). In recent years there has been renewed interest in the use of
silent chain for automobile camshaft timing. Silent chain is also used in the drive train of snow-

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12 Standard Handbook of Chains

FIGURE 1-25 Typical silent chain drive.

mobiles and four-wheel-drive recreational vehicles. Outside the power transmission market, silent
chain can be found serving as a conveying surface in a variety of material transport applications
(Figure 1-26). The chain’s positive, smooth operation, as well as the extensive range of available
pitches, widths, and assembly styles, offers distinct advantages to conveyor system designers and
operators.
Silent chains are made up of stacked rows of flat link plates with gear-type contours designed
to engage sprocket teeth in a manner similar to the way a rack engages a gear (Figure 1-27). The
links are held together at each chain joint by one or more pins, which also allow the chain to flex.
The design of both the link contour and the chain joint directly influences a chain’s useful load
carrying capacity, its rate of wear and service life, and its quietness of operation. Sprocket tooth
design also influences these characteristics. Accordingly, each of these areas—link, joint, and
sprocket design—has been the subject of considerable research in an effort to optimize chain design
and performance. While the industry standard (ASME B29.2) defines the key features of silent
chains and sprockets most commonly used for industrial power transmission, there exist a large
number of unique chain designs that have been developed by different manufacturers for specific
applications.

FLAT-TOP CHAIN
In the 1920s and 1930s, major improvements were made in the production of food and beverage
products. The introduction of high-speed processing, filling, and packaging equipment drove the
need for a chain with a flat carrying surface for material handling. The first flat-top chains were
produced by simply welding steel plates to roller chain, thus producing a flat surface where products
or packages could be carried. The first hinge-type flat-top conveyor chain was introduced in 1935.
It was made of a series of flat plates with curled tangs on each side that formed the outer portion
of a hinge. Pins were inserted into the holes of the curled tangs to make a continuous flat-topped
conveyor chain that could flex in one direction. These first flat-top chains were available in carbon
and corrosion-resistant steel (Figure 1-28) and were widely used in the brewing industry to convey
glass bottles.

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A Brief History of the Development of Chain 13

FIGURE 1-26 Typical silent chain conveyor.

Continuing developments in the food and beverage industries produced the need for flat-top
chains made from materials other than steel. By the 1960s, flat-top chains made from plastic were
widely available (Figure 1-29).
Straight-running flat-top chains are standardized in ASME B29.17M, Hinge Type Flat Top
Conveyor Chains and Sprocket Teeth.
A straight conveyor is not always possible, due to flow processes, obstructions in the plant,
etc., so side-flexing flat-top conveyor chains were developed. These chains are based on straight-
running designs, but have additional clearance in the joint that permits the chain to traverse curves
in one or two directions (Figure 1-30). Side-flexing flat-top chains are not covered by any ANSI
standard, but they are an important item in the flat-top product line and will be covered further in
this book.

TERMINOLOGY
Certain terms and phrases commonly used in discussions of chain are well known and accepted.
“Chain pitch,” “pitch diameter,” “link,” and “sprocket” are the most common. These are defined,
implicitly at least, in many places in the text.
Varying terms are sometimes used in catalogs and other published works for what are func-
tionally similar parts of different types and classes of chains. These differences in terms stem from

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FIGURE 1-27 Silent chain meshing with sprocket.

FIGURE 1-28 Steel flat-top chain.

the separate, but parallel, development of roller chain and engineering steel chain over a span of
more than 100 years. Each group developed its own terms. Their use then spread from the catalogs
and advertising of manufacturers to technical papers, ANSI standards, and other published works.
For example, the tension members between the joints of roller chain are called link plates, while
the functionally similar members of engineering steel chain are usually called sidebars. But in
some types of chains used for tension linkage applications, these parts are called blocks and bars.

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A Brief History of the Development of Chain 15

FIGURE 1-29 Plastic flat-top chain.

FIGURE 1-30 Side-flexing flat-top chain.

FIGURE 1-31 Typical link plate for roller chain and sidebar for engineering steel chain.

At first, the differences in terms would seem to add confusion to what appears to the casual
observer to be a very complex subject. But actually the variations in terms are quite useful. The
different terms are generally applied to components that are functionally similar, but differ widely
in shape, finish, and many other ways. Figure 1-31 shows a link plate for a roller chain and a
sidebar for engineering steel chain.

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16 Standard Handbook of Chains

A link plate in a roller chain is likely to be placed in a drive running in a friendly environment.
But that link plate will be subjected to an enormous number of cycles at very high loads. A roller
chain often has to be replaced because of wear elongation, and sometimes due to link plate fatigue.
On the other hand, a sidebar in an engineering steel chain is likely to be placed in a conveyor
running in a wet and dirty environment. The sidebar is subjected to relatively few cycles at high
loads, but is subjected to a lot of moisture and dirt. Engineering steel chains more often have to
be replaced because of corrosion and abrasive wear.
Each part, link plate, or sidebar is processed to give the part the properties best suited to the
end use. The holes in link plates are usually put through special processing to improve quality, and
link plates are heat treated and finished to increase fatigue strength. The holes in sidebars are
somewhat less finely finished, and sidebars are heat treated for corrosion and abrasion resistance.
Sidebars are generally left with a rather rough finish. Once understood, the different terms are no
longer so confusing. They help the user to quickly recognize important differences in size, shape,
finish, and end use.

© 2006 by American Chain Association