Determine Adequacy of Installation of Existing Roadside Barriers on High-Speed Roadways
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Official (AASHTO) Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) specifies the highest impact speed for crash testing of barrier systems with passenger vehicles is 62 mph, which was derived from analyses of reconstructed crash data nearly 20 years old. Preliminary data from National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Project 17-43, Long-Term Roadside Crash Data Collection Program under which a new database of reconstructed run-off-road crashes is being developed, indicates that for highways with a posted speed limit greater than 70 mph, the 85th percentile impact speed is 67.7 mph. This represents a need for a higher design impact speed for barriers used on these higher speed roadways. Increased impact speeds will place more demand on barrier systems. There have been observations of guardrail systems developing partial rail tears when tested under MASH impact conditions, indicating that these systems are near their containment capacity. The Receiving Agency has a significant mileage of roadways with posted speeds of 75 miles per hour (mph) and greater. The Performing Agency shall assess performance limits of identified commonly used barrier systems for higher impact speeds using engineering analysis and finite element (FE) simulations and provide with design guidance for selection and installation of such barriers at higher posted speed limit highways, while maintaining MASH compliance.
Language
- English
Project
- Status: Completed
- Funding: $269998
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Contract Numbers:
0-7121
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Sponsor Organizations:
Texas Department of Transportation
125 E. 11th Street
Austin, TX United States 78701-2483 -
Managing Organizations:
Texas Department of Transportation
125 E. 11th Street
Austin, TX United States 78701-2483 -
Project Managers:
Jensen, Darrin
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Performing Organizations:
Texas A&M Transportation Institute
Texas A&M University System
3135 TAMU
College Station, TX United States 77843-3135 -
Principal Investigators:
Bligh, Roger
- Start Date: 20210901
- Expected Completion Date: 20230831
- Actual Completion Date: 20230831
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Barriers (Roads); Crash data; Crash tests; Crashworthiness; Highways; Impact tests; Installation; Speed
- Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors; Terminals and Facilities;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01782718
- Record Type: Research project
- Source Agency: Texas Department of Transportation
- Contract Numbers: 0-7121
- Files: RIP, STATEDOT
- Created Date: Sep 23 2021 12:26PM