US Patent Issued to Ford Global Technologies on June 3 for "Fastening element for friction welding and method for friction welding a fastening element onto a planar workpiece" (German, Belgian Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,318,862, issued on June 3, was assigned to Ford Global Technologies LLC (Dearborn, Mich.).

"Fastening element for friction welding and method for friction welding a fastening element onto a planar workpiece" was invented by Ferat Oezkan (Ubach-Palenberg, Germany), Julius Maximilian Engelke (Aachen, Germany), Francesco Italiano (Kelmis, Belgium) and Mohamed Youssef (Aachen, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An assembly includes a workpiece and a fastening element. The fastening element is configured to drill a hole in the workpiece and allow the fastening element to be friction-welded to the workpiece."

The patent was filed on Feb. 6...