Develop Guidelines for Inspection, Repair, and Use of Portable Concrete Barrier

The Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) Implementation agreement allows State Transportation Agencies to continue the use of Portable Concrete Barriers (PCBs) manufactured on or before December 31, 2019 and successfully tested to NCHRP Report 350 or the 2009 edition of MASH, throughout their normal service life. Damage to the precast barriers can occur in transit, in storage, or due to vehicular impact. Often damage to the connections occurs, cracks in the barrier, corners broken and many other forms of damage can be sustained by the barrier. No federal guidance, however, has been developed to determine life expectancy for PCBs. There is a need to develop a guideline addressing the type and extent of barrier damage that would constitute replacement of the segment. To meet the research objective, the research team will document best practices with respect to management of repairing or replacing PCB segments and utilize a combination of engineering evaluation, dynamic component testing and full-scale crash testing to develop guidelines to assist in developing a process to determine the useful service life. Defining the service life of PCBs is important to reduce the risk of inferior unsafe barriers being used on Texas roadways.

• Record URL:
  https://library.ctr.utexas.edu/Presto/project=0-7059

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $353455
• Contract Numbers:

  0-7059

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Texas Department of Transportation

  125 E. 11th Street
  Austin, TX  United States  78701-2483

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Texas Department of Transportation

  125 E. 11th Street
  Austin, TX  United States  78701-2483
• Project Managers:

  Schwerdt, Tom

• Performing Organizations:

  Texas Transportation Institute

  Texas A&M University System
  3135 TAMU
  College Station, TX  United States  77843-3135
• Principal Investigators:

  Dobrovolny, Chiara

• Start Date: 20191101
• Expected Completion Date: 20220531
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Barriers (Roads); Crash tests
• Subject Areas: Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01744099
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Texas Department of Transportation
• Contract Numbers: 0-7059
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jun 25 2020 4:32PM