Transition Between Guardrail and Tangent Anchored Portable Concrete Barriers (616391/ Task Order EK)

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Final Report Link: Transition Between Guardrail and Tangent Anchored Portable Concrete Barriers

 
TTI Research Supervisor:
Nauman M. Sheikh, P.E.
Associate Research Engineer
Texas A&M Transportation Institute
TAMU 3135
College Station, Texas 77843-3135
(979) 317-2695
[email protected]
  Pooled Fund Representative:
Shawn Debenham
Utah Department of Transportation
4501 South 2700 West
PO Box 143200
Salt Lake City, UT 84114-3200
(801) 965-4590
[email protected]

ABSTRACT

This report presents the development and full-scale crash testing of the Transition between Guardrail to
Anchored Portable Concrete Barrier (“Transition”). The design of the Transition was developed using finite
element simulation and analysis. A standard W-beam guardrail was connected to portable concrete barriers that were anchored to underlying asphalt using steel pins. The transition section was comprised of previously crash tested W-beam to nested Thrie-beam transition. This report presents the details and results of simulation analyses. It also presents the assessment of the performance of the Transition according to the safety-performance evaluation guidelines included in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH), Second Edition (1). The crash tests were performed in accordance with MASH Test Level 3 (TL-3), which requires two crash tests:

  1. MASH Test 3-20: An 1100C vehicle weighing 2420 lb impacting the longitudinal barrier at 25
    degrees, while travelling at 62 mi/h.
  2. MASH Test 3-21: A 2270P vehicle weighing 5000 lb impacting the longitudinal barrier at 25
    degrees, while traveling at 62 mi/h.

This report provides details of the Transition, the crash tests and results, and the performance assessment
of the Transition for MASH TL-3 evaluation criteria for longitudinal barriers.
The Transition between Guardrail to Anchored Portable Concrete Barrier met the performance criteria for
MASH TL-3 for longitudinal barriers.