US Patent RE39487 Flywheel assembly for internal combustion engine

A crankshaft assembly for an internal combustion engine includes a crankshaft, an elastic member fixed to the crankshaft, and a flywheel fixed to the elastic member such that the flywheel is supported in an elastic relationship with the crankshaft. The elastic member has a rigidity in its rotating direction large enough to effectively transmit a driving power to a transmission through a clutch. On the other hand, the elastic member has a rigidity in an axial direction of the crankshaft small enough to shift a resonance frequency of a bending vibration out of a target frequency band of a forced vibration, while ensuring to prevent a failure of disengagement of the clutch.