Citation

Flury FC, Paar HG. Accid. Anal. Prev. 1973; 5(3): 215-222.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1973, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Research in the Netherlands by the Institute for Road Safety Research SWOV has led to the development of a series of crash barriers of basically the same design but with varying degrees of resistance to lateral deflection. The Dutch Ministry of Transport has adopted this barrier system as the standard for the entire national road network. In general a crash barrier should fulfil a set of requirements: (1) During the crash phase the space occupation by the colliding vehicle has to be limited to the area bounded by the road edge and the boundary of the hazard area. (2) The longitudinal speed loss must be limited. (3) The lateral component of the re-entrance speed should be minimized. The requirements (2) and (3) are for minimizing the risk caused by a possible re-entry in the traffic stream after the collision. (4) The accelerations of the colliding vehicle should not exceed a 5g level. (5) The barrier should still be operational after a collision.The parts of the series of structures developed are a beam consisting of two W-shaped rails and spacers every 1.33 m with a possible addition of diagonal bars and a set of specially designed relatively weak posts, both for soft soil and for bridges. Besides experimental research a mathematical model is developed for simulating collisions with the designed structures.