ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,686,073, issued on July 21, was assigned to JFE STEEL Corp. (Tokyo).
"Friction element welding method" was invented by Naoaki Munemura (Tokyo) and Koichi Taniguchi (Tokyo).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A friction element welding method for welding a sheet set that includes two or more overlapping metal sheets by pressing a rotating element having a tapered portion at a tip into the sheet set, the method includes a first step of removing a film of oxide on an upper surface of a lower sheet disposed as a lowermost layer of the sheet set, and a second step of pressing the rotating element into the lower sheet to form a welded portion."
The...