The United States of America as Represented by the Administrator of the

Michael C Eubanks

Horacio M De La Fuente

Anthony X Dao

A force transmitting load alleviator apparatus 10 and method are provided for rotatably and pivotally driving a member to be protected against overload torsional and bending (moment) forces. The load alleviator 10 includes at least one bias spring 42 to resiliently bias cam followers 18 and cam surfaces 22 together and to maintain them in locked engagement unless a predetermined load is exceeded whereupon a center housing 12 is pivotal or rotational with respect to a crown assembly 14. This pivotal and rotational movement results in frictional dissipation of the overload force by an energy dissipator 16. The energy dissipator 16 can be provided to dissipate substantially more energy from the overload force than from the bias force that automatically resets the center housing 12 and crown assembly 14 to the normally fixed centered alignment. The torsional and bending (moment) overload levels can designed independently of each other.

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Tulsa, OK, United States of America

Michael C Eubanks