Accident reconstruction research

Research / Guardrails

News Articles:

• 3 die, 1 injured when their car breaks guardrail, falls into Sound
• Chicago Police Officer Killed in Tragic Accident

Research Papers:

• UC Center Studies Ways to Design Safer Guardrails: a research paper on guardrails, includes a short movie.
• Effects of Presence of Light Poles on Vehicle Impact of Roadside Barriers: This report evalutes whether the presence of light poles immediately behind guardrails reduces safety. The conclusion is that it does not.
• Abstract : Interstate Median Entry Crash/Fatigued Driver

Other Web Sites:

• Technical Advisory - Guardrail Transitions : To transmit information pertaining to the design and installation of the transition from an approach W-beam or \thrie beam guardrail system to concrete bridge rail, wingwall or parapet, or other concrete barrier or rigid wall.
  
• Guard Rail Warning System Curve enhancement warning System
  
• Guide to Standardized Highway Barrier Rail Hardware : Perhaps the most noticeable change resulting from the metrication process is the heights of common guardrails shown in figure 1. Specifying the height of a guardrail to the nearest millimeter suggests an inappropriately small construction tolerance.
  
• Highway Guardrail Systems : Bryson Products - has some schematics on guardrails.
  
• Highway guardrails : This site takes you picture by picture of different types of guardrails and barriers. Click on the first link and the rest has page by page navigation.

Photographs and Descriptions:

	The bullnose above has steel I-beams and will not cushion the crash. A crash on this bullnose could create more that 20 G's of force on the occupants of a vehicle.
	This is a close up photo of the bullnose pictured above.
	ET2000 This terminal is an attenuating terminal and is very effective. There are some different modifications. When hit this terminal flattens the W-beam rail and shoots it away from the car and driver. Kill and incapacitating rate close to 0%. We have heard of accidents at 75mph and the driver has walked away.
	Flexbeam Guardrail W-Beam guardrail is the most widely accepted, cost-effective highway safety barrier in the world.
	The melt is a glorified BCT and has been redesigned and tested several times.
	Pressure treatment is used extensively to protect the wood posts and blocks in our highway guardrail systems. Numerous crash tests have shown the properties of wood to be a safe and excellent support for the guardrail systems.
	Thriebeam Guardrail Triple corrugated guardrail is used in Bridge protection and where increased impact strength is required.
	This terminal was turned down into the ground to prevent spearing but causes many smaller cars to roll over. Rollovers are the most severe type of roadside crashes. Although rollovers occur in only 15% of roadside crashes, they are responsible for more than 25 percent of all roadside fatalities. Nearly 75% of all rollovers occur on rural two-lane roads that have limited right-of-way and were designed to meet older, less demanding standards. Kill and Incapacitating rate of turndown is 15-20%