The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 24, 1996
Filed:
Apr. 25, 1995
Horacio M de la Fuente, Friendswood, TX (US);
Michael C Eubanks, Tulsa, OK (US);
Anthony X Dao, Friendswood, TX (US);
Abstract
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.