TTI Research Supervisor:
Nauman Sheikh
Texas A&M Transportation Institute
TAMU 3135
College Station, Texas 77843-3135
Pooled Fund Technical Representative:
Tim Moeckel
Roadside Safety Engineer
Washington State Department of Transportation
Development Division
(360)704-6377 [email protected]
ABSTRACT
The research report presents the evaluation of the Long-Span Guardrail system installed in front of a fall-protection fence. The design was evaluated through finite element modeling and simulation, followed by full-scale crash testing. Details of the simulation and crash testing evaluation are presented in this report.
The crash tests were preformed to assess the performance of the long-span Guardrail installed in front of the fall-protection fence according to the safety-performance evaluation guidelines included in the second edition of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) (1). The crash tests were performed in accordance with MASH Test Level 3 (TL-3), which involves performing the following tests:
MASH Test 3-10: An 1100C vehicle weighting 2,420 lb impacting the guardrail while traveling at 62 mi/h and 25 degrees.
MASH Test 3-11: An 2270P vehicle weighting 5,000 lb impacting the guardrail while traveling at 62 mi/h and 25 degrees.
The Long-Span Guardrail installed in front of the fall-protection fence met the performance criteria for MASH TL-3 for longitudinal barrier.
