US Patent Issued to ZF FRIEDRICHSHAFEN, ZF WIND POWER ANTWERPEN on March 25 for "Non-circular sliding surface" (Belgian, German Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,259,001, issued on March 25, was assigned to ZF FRIEDRICHSHAFEN AG (Friedrichshafen, Germany) and ZF WIND POWER ANTWERPEN N.V. (Lommel, Belgium).

"Non-circular sliding surface" was invented by Maarten Ooms (Geel, Belgium), Koen Krieckemans (Noorderwijk, Belgium), Michel Goovaerts (Hulshout, Belgium) and Dennis Witter (Friedrichshafen, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An inner sliding surface for a radial plain bearing, including four circle arcs in at least one cross section. A first arc and a second arc of the four circle arcs lie on different sides of a longitudinal sectional plane which intersects a third arc of the four circle...