Happy new year! The year 2022 marks the 50-year anniversary of Trane’s Engineers Newsletter (EN) publication. This year, in addition to our quarterly topical newsletter publications, we’re going to highlight past newsletter topics as they relate to current issues and showcase past and current authors. To kick off this year-long celebration, applications engineer Eric Sturm writes about the past fifty years of ENs.

Since its inception, Trane® has strived to provide objective and useful information to engineers and contractors. Early examples include numerous bulletins covering new systems and equipment. In addition, the company began publishing the Trane Air Conditioning Manual in 1938.

In June 1972, Trane began publishing the Engineers Newsletter covering a wide variety of topics that are immediately relevant to the consulting engineer in a timely fashion.

In the 1970s, many newsletters discussed how to save energy, the newly published ASHRAE® Standard 90-75 (predecessor to the current Standard 90.1), energy modeling with new mainframe-based software, and new variable-air-volume systems.

In the 1980s, major topics included primary-secondary chilled-water systems, the new concepts of variable-primary flow chilled-water systems, thermal storage systems, microelectronics and direct digital control, and more.

The 1990s brought continued discussion on variable-primary flow chilled-water systems, system optimization (critical zone reset, chiller-tower optimization), Standard 62, and acoustics.

At the turn of the century, we discussed “newer” systems, including dedicated outdoor air systems, chilled beam systems, underfloor air distribution, and variable refrigerant flow.

Over the past decade, discussions continued regarding energy efficiency, including chiller efficiency, VAV optimization, air- and waterside economizing, while also providing regular updates on common ASHRAE® standards.

To put this milestone into perspective, consider some interesting statistics:

• The first publication occurred in June 1972
• Throughout the past fifty years, we’ve covered more than a dozen themes, including: standards and codes, chilled water systems, airside systems, direct expansion systems, indoor air quality, heat recovery, refrigerants, ventilation, thermal storage, electrical, acoustics, and more!
• More than 30 expert authors have contributed to the Engineers Newsletter. While most authors have been employees of Trane, several outside experts have also contributed.
• Between June 1972 and December 2021, there have been 261 Engineers Newsletters constituting 1,638 pages of technical content.

This milestone would not be possible without your support and feedback. While the appearance and delivery methods have evolved, our commitment to providing objective and useful HVAC information remains the same. Here’s to the next fifty years!