Patents by Inventor Wesley Ronald Clark

Wesley Ronald Clark has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 5993066
    Abstract: A hydrodynamic bearing design is disclosed incorporating a flexible membrane at one end of the fluid gap in the hydrodynamic bearing. If voids exist in the fluid, and if changes in the size of these voids or bubbles occur with changes in temperature or pressure in which the disc drive is being used, then the volume of the fluid will change, and increase relative to the change in size of the volume of the surrounding physical part. The flexible membrane will yield to the increased pressure of the increasing volume of the fluid. The membrane essentially acts as a spring whose spring force is overcome by the pressure created by or accompanying a increase in volume in which the lubricating fluid is contained, and preventing its escape or being forced out of the inner region of the bearing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 3, 1997
    Date of Patent: November 30, 1999
    Assignee: Seagate Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Hans Leuthold, Coda H. Pan, David John Jennings, Lakshman Nagarathnam, Raquib U. Khan, Wesley Ronald Clark, Gunter Heine
  • Patent number: 5946958
    Abstract: An apparatus for forming grooves in the surface of an article is disclosed. The apparatus includes a cage which has a circular cage wall with an annular pattern of holes in the wall. The apparatus also includes a plurality of spherical balls, each rotatably disposed in a respective hole of the cage wall and has a diameter greater than the wall thickness. The apparatus further includes a pin located within the cage, the pin has a circumferential groove in a plane coincident with the plurality of spherical balls and holes in the cage wall so that the pin holds the balls in the groove, the balls protruding through the cage wall and engaging the surface of a workpiece to be grooved so that the balls roll in the groove in the pin and, with movement of the workpiece and the apparatus, cause grooves to be formed in the interior surface of the workpiece.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 2, 1996
    Date of Patent: September 7, 1999
    Assignee: Seagate Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Wesley Ronald Clark, Roger Allen Addy, Samnathan Murthy, David Jennings
  • Patent number: 5685647
    Abstract: The present invention includes four sections or partitions: two thrust bearings which are formed by the sides of a grooved thrust plate and corresponding countersurfaces, the thrust bearings designed to cause fluid flow in a single direction up around the rotating thrust plate and upward along the surface of a rotating journal, and two journal bearings formed side-by-side on the journal formed between a rotating shaft and a bushing with multiple spiral-grooved sections being formed on the rotating shaft or in the stationary bushing. The two journal bearings are separated by a circumferential groove in the shaft which is connected by a radial bore to a hollow reservoir in the shaft for providing fluid to the journal bearing and the thrust bearing. By providing this bore and a second bore located near to the thrust bearing, the boundary conditions for the combined journal bearings and thrust bearings are fixed and a stable rotating shaft is achieved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 7, 1995
    Date of Patent: November 11, 1997
    Assignee: Seagate Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Hans Leuthold, David John Jennings, Wesley Ronald Clark, Raquib Khan, Guenther Heine