New MASH-Compliant Guardrail System for Placement on Slope

The 2002 American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Roadside Design Guide recommends that w-beam guardrail be installed with the back of the guardrail post positioned 2’ in front of a slope break. In rolling and mountainous terrain or in locations with restrictive environmental conditions, it is often difficult to provide this width. As a result, designers must evaluate trade-offs between reduced shoulder width and guardrail installations that are less than optimal. In many instances, guardrail is installed with longer posts to provide adequate soil embedment. In the most restrictive site conditions, the post lengths are excessively long and complicate system installation and maintenance repairs. The research team used crash simulation and finite element analysis, followed by full scale crash testing to explore system performance with standard w-beam guardrail components. The project focused on designs that minimized post length. A 31” high w-beam guardrail system with 8 foot long posts, spaced on 6’- 3” centers met MASH test level 3 criteria, when placed with the face of rail over the slope break point on a 2H:1V fill slope.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AFB00 Design.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Abu-Odeh, Akram
  • Albin, Richard B
  • Olson, David K
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2013-1-13 to 2013-1-17
• Date: 2013

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Photos; References;
• Pagination: 21p
• Monograph Title: TRB 92nd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash tests; Embankments; Finite element method; Guardrails; Mountain roads; Posts
• Identifier Terms: AASHTO Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I22: Design of Pavements, Railways and Guideways; I85: Safety Devices used in Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01474150
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 13-5221
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 28 2013 2:42PM