ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,358,577, issued on July 15, was assigned to Caterpillar Inc. (Peoria, Ill.).
"Cast idler wheel" was invented by Martin Tagore Joseph Xavier (Chennai, India), Brian B. Umbach (Peoria, Ill.) and Chetan Vilas Dahiwal (Chennai, India).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An idler wheel includes a hub, an outer rim, and a pair of side plates that form an interior cavity extending radially between the outer rim (110) and the hub, and axially between the pair of side plates. The first side plate defines a maximum side plate axial thickness disposed radially next to the hub in a cross-sectional plane containing a radial direction, and an axis of rotati...