According to the solutions known, vehicles are protected by means of elements absorbing energy, which is produced during a crash in large quantities in very short time intervals measured in milliseconds. Usually, such elements include bumpers with a variety of constructions that absorb crash energy, however a very small portion of that produced. As a result, the whole vehicle is subject to deformation until it is crushed and huge force (inertia, overloads) that act on passengers and luggage make them move and even throw them away from the vehicle. So, passengers are subject to not only bodily injury caused by the car body being crushed but also by the car components such as engine, gear box and steering system that move inwards the body.

In order to counteract these mfavourable effect,s in some vehicles shock absorbers have been used in classic bumper constructions specific to solutions that damp sudden forces.

However, the results obtained have been unsatisfactory.

The proposed method allows the above described dangers to be avoided or limited to a great extent.

The method under consideration consists in that suddenly produced kinetic energy is immediately converted and stored in an accumulating converter.

In particular, the kinetic energy produced by the force acting on the vehicle's bumper is converted into rotational energy which set impellers) in motion.

The device invented has a bumper and energy absorbing system, which converts straight-line motion energy into rotational energy.

The first implementation option of the system, which converts straight-line motion energy into rotational energy, includes a guide mating with the bumper and equipped with a toothed bar. The guide is connected with a toothed wheel of a gear and the toothed bar has, on a part of its circumference, a toothed wheel mating with a disc with a rack, which is significantly lower in diameter than the part of circumference. (see Figure 1).

The second implementation option includes a converter mating with the bumper. The converter consists of a block with U-shaped cutting,s another similar block also with U- shaped cuttings with different width that are displaced against the cuttings of the first Mock, rollers located at the ends of protrusions formed by cuttings, and a string spanning the two blocks and wound on accumulating discs.

The device invented is shown as some implementation examples on the following fi Figure 1 presents the first implementation option of the invention. Figure 2 presents the second implementation option of the invention, and Figure 3 presents another implementation option.

The device shown in Figure 1 has a guide equipped with a toothed bar. The toothed bar mates with a pinion of a gear with a large toothed wheel on a part of its circumference, whereas the latter Slates with a pinion of rotary disc, which forms a kinetic energy accumulator. Upon impact on the bumper the pinion of the gear is set in motion thereby actuating the large toothed wheel of the gear on a part of its circumference. At the same time, the pinion of the rotary accumulating disc is set in motion to take energy from the bumper. The pinion will immediately be disconnected after it has mated with the large toothed wheel of the gear on a part of its circumference.

Figure 2 presents the second implementation option of the invention. Upon action of a force on the bumper, the protrusions of one block ended with rollers move and come into the cuttings of the other Mock. At the same time, the string is deformed from a straight-line form into a wave form, so the string is pulled out from the accumulating discs thereby setting them in rotation result iii the transfer of the bumper's energy to the accumulating discs and its its conversion into energy needed to rotate the discs. So straight-line motion energy is converted into rotational energy. The harmful bumper's energy acting along a saint line is neutralised.

Figure 3 presents another implementation option.

As previously mentioned, the invention allows a motor vehicle to be protected by means of energetic bumper, energetic brake, energetic vibration dampers and energetic armour against a crash and/of sudden braking and/or vibrations caused by unevenness and/or other bodies with high kinetic energy such as stones or bullets impacting on the vehicle and energy to be accumulated. It will be the vehicle's energy in the event of crashing into an obstacle, the total energy of two vehicles in the event of two vehicles crashing into each other (if the other vehicle has no device according to the invention installed), the energy of stone/bullet in the event of its impact, the vehicle's energy in the event of braking and finally, the vehicle's mechanical vibraiton energy in the event of vibrations.

The Energy Converter and Accumulator (ECA) takes the kinetic energy from a vehicle when crashing or braking ad converts it into the kinetic energy of a rotary element (mechanical accumulator). The rotary element is a component of the ECA and accumulates a significant part or almost the whole energy of a vehicle in motion. The ECA must convert energy within such a time interval that is shorter than that causing irreversible crash effects, i. e. shall be measured in milliseconds. The ECA accumulates the vehicle's kinetic energy in an impeller whose mass is as little as about one per cent (10/o) of the vehicle ! s mass. Such a high kinetic energy is accumulated by the ECA m such a small mass by rotating the impeller at very high speed amounting to tenths of nds rpm or even more. The vehcile's energy flows to the ECA through mechanical transmissions : gear., string ones, magnetic or hybrid transmissions with fixed or variable transmission ratios. Energy is accumulated in the form of rotational energy of impellers with a fixed or variable moment of inertia during the process.

The ECA operation, and thereby the protection method, is based on the energy conservation law. The vehicle in motion, from which energy is taken, transferred and converted into the energy of a different object (in this case ECA) becomes safe.

The energy of any object being in rotary motion is determined by the following formulae: Ekrm=½I0#02 where: Ekm = kinetic energy being in rotary motion of the object whose energy is to be absorbed, I0-the object's moment of inertia, @0-the objects angular velocity.

The energy of any object being in translatory motion is determined by the following formulae : E = ½m0V02 where : Ektm = kinetic energy int ranslatory motion of the object whose energy is to be absorbed, mo-the object's mass, Vo-the object's linear velocity.

The kinetic energy of the ECA's accumulator being in rotary motion is determined by the following formulae : Ekrma=½Ia#a2 where : Ekm = =kinetic energy of the accumulator absorbing and accumulating the object's energy, <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> Ia - the accumulator's moment of inertia,<BR> #a - the accumulator's angular velocity.

Any vehicle will be protected effectively against any crash effects when the ECA takes as much as possible kinetic energy of the vehicle in motion (boejct) and accumulates it as rotational energy, i.e. Ekrma as determined by formulae (3) is close to the objects energy as determined by formula (2) or (1). The time limits as mentioned above must be observed in the process of energy flow from the object to the ECA.

Figure 1 presents the first implementation option of the ECA device, which converts translatory motion energy of a moving object into rotatioaai energy-The system consists of base 1 immovaly fixed to the protected vehicle, element, movable against the base, taking impact force and transferring energy 2, flexible element 3 attached to the movable element 2, gear 4 converting translatory motion into rotary motion, multiplying gear 5, which transfers kinetic energy to energy accumulator 6 Once a force has acted on element (2) and energy flowed to accumulator 6, both gears 5 and 6 will disconnect thus enabling the accumulator to store for a longer time the energy taken. The ECA system shown in Figure 1 is designed as a twin version, i.e. there are two symmetrically located gears and accumulators.

Figure 2 presents the other implementation option of the ECA system, which consists of base 1 immovably fixed to the protected vehicle, fixed part 22 of the string transmission connected immovably with the base, movable part 23 of the string transmission, rollers 24 guiding the string in both the fixed and movable part, string 25, parts on which the string is wound 26 (the cross section of elements can be a circle, scroll, cam to enable torque's arm to be changed), energy accumulators 27, element to take impact force and transfer energy 28, connected immovably with the movable part of the roller trnasmission. Upon crash, the movable part of the roller transmission slides along the guides into the fixed part and tightens the string guided by the rollers. The tightened string is unwound from part 26 and sets the accumulators in rotation as parts 26 are immovably connected with the accumulators. By setting the energy accumulators in rotation they take and accumulate energy of the protected vehicle. This ECA design option of the system consists of one string transmission, which transfers energy to two energy accumulators.

Figure 3 shows another implementation option of the invention. Here, the ECA device consists of base @ 1 immovably fixed to the protected vehicle, part taking force and transferring crash energy 32, toothed bar 33, toothed gear 34 to convert translatory motion into rotation, mechanical accumulators 35 to take and store the vehicle's kinetic energy to be converted into rotational energy. Set into rotation, the energy accumulators are immovably connected with the toothed wheels of gear 34 The accumulators have movable parts 36, which after actuating an accumulator move outwards of the rotation axis due to centrifugal force thus increasing the accumulator's moment of inertia. It is easier to start up the accumulator with variable moment of inertia as it starts to move at a lower moment of inertia. The ECA system shown in Figure 3 is a twin version including two gears and two accumulators. In case of a crash, energy is trnasferred to the gears and then converted into kinetic rotational energy. which is stored in the accumulator. Once part 32 has been moved due to a crash and the related energy transferred to the accumulator by gear 34 the gear is disconnected.

Thanks to the invention, in addition to the vehicle's protection, inertia forces acting on masses in the vehicle (people, luggage) are reduced. Such reduction may exceed 90% as compared with those ose values when the invention is not used.

The invention can replace the action of bumpers, crumple zones, shields and armours with separate devices, with different performance and accumulated energy, to be used for each of the above mentioned tasks- Use of energy conversion and accumualtion to repalce crumple zones, friction brakes, shock absorbers, stiff shields and armours.

It should be stressed that the invention can be used to eliminate inertia forces, i.e. when braking aeroplanes at short runways such as on aircraft carriers, touching an aeroplane with the ground (absorbing inertia forces), as well as, to brake ships or generally speaking - to liquidate inertia forces acting on any object by converting the object's kinetic energy into the kinetic energy of devices purposely built according to this invention.

The use of the ECA system as an energetic brake is similar to that as a bumper but much simpler, since there is no need to convert translatory motion into rotation.