Crash test and MASH TL-3 evaluation of the TxDOT short radius guardrail.

Details

• Creators:
  Abu-Odeh, Akram Y. ; McCaskey, Katherine ; Bligh, Roger P. ; Menges, Wanda L. ; Kuhn, Darrell L.
• Corporate Creators:
  Texas A&M Transportation Institute
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration ; Texas. Dept. of Transportation
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Guardrails
  • Impact tests
  • Highway safety
  • Simulation
  • Finite element method
  • T intersections
  • Curved rail
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA/TX-15/0-6711-1
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Texas
• Corporate Publisher:
  Texas A&M Transportation Institute
• Abstract:
  When a roadway intersects a highway with restrictive features such as a bridge rail and canal, it ; becomes difficult to fit a guardrail with the proper length, transitions, and end treatment along the highway. ; Possible solutions include relocating the constraint blocking the placement of the guardrail, shortening the ; designed guardrail length, or designing a curved guardrail. ; Curved, or short radius, guardrails typically present the most viable solution for these areas. ; However, no previously designed short radius guardrails meet National Cooperative Highway Research ; Program (NCHRP) Report 350 Test Level 3 (TL-3) guidelines. Now, the American Association of State ; Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) has ; updated crash testing criteria. The new guidelines supersede NCHRP Report 350 and increased the size of ; test vehicles and changed the test matrices to include more impact conditions. Therefore, meeting new ; impact standards for short radius guardrails has become more challenging. ; TTI researchers investigated, modeled, and simulated an optimized short radius design under this ; project. Subsequently, TTI researchers crash tested this system successfully to MASH 3-33, 3-32, 3-31, and ; 3-35 test conditions. This innovative design utilizes an energy dissipation component plus a cable anchor that ; provides tension capacity to the rail section on the primary roadway, though an anchor BCT post on the ; secondary road portion of the system. These new innovative design details made the system very effective in ; capturing the vehicles in short distances while using readily available components.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  Project 0-6711
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/28788/dot_28788_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 38.33 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:09f36c6d9edf45944ed5ab5142c66b2a6e01ee25f602b4614bf1136e6f1a5a24