US Patent Issued to ZF FRIEDRICHSHAFEN on May 26 for "Self-repairing plain bearing" (German, Belgian Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,638,046, issued on May 26, was assigned to ZF FRIEDRICHSHAFEN AG (Friedrichshafen, Germany).

"Self-repairing plain bearing" was invented by Maarten Ooms (Geel., Belgium), Thomas Meinerz (Friedrichshafen, Germany) and Roger Karl (Karlsruhe, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for operating a plain bearing including: determining a first rotational speed at which a transition of a lubrication state takes place, or at which friction in the plain bearing is at a minimum; comparing the first rotational speed to a threshold value; and if the rotational speed has exceeded the threshold value, operating the bearing to produce a self-re...