Computer Modeling and Simulation of Signs Mounted Within the Zone of Intrusion of Concrete Median Barriers

Concrete median barriers (CMBs) are some of the most common roadside safety devices found in this country. Often, signs or other similar hardware must be mounted on the CMB in order to provide proper signage for motorists. If the signs are mounted within the zone of intrusion, full-scale crash tests are needed to verify their impact performance. At the time of this study, there were few American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware compliant signs available for state departments of transportation to use. Therefore, four sign support systems were simulated using finite element analysis software to investigate their performance during an impact. Based on the results, the researchers recommended the most crashworthy systems for full-scale crash testing.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AFB20 Standing Committee on Roadside Safety Design.
• Authors:
  • Kovar, James C
  • Abu-Odeh, Akram Y
  • Odell, Wade
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 20p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Computer models; Crashworthiness; Highway safety; Median barriers; Safety equipment; Simulation; Traffic signs
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01661319
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-05923
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 26 2018 1:47PM