The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is currently evaluating composite materials for roadside safety applications, specifically guardrail and other barrier structures. Much of the testing of these materials has been on small coupon samples of either commercially manufactured or laboratory-fabricated composite material. When testing specimens that are smaller than the actual inservice structure, size effects exist and need to be accounted for in order to use the resulting experimental data. The report examines many of the pertinent issues relating crashworthiness and the effects of scaling composite materials through a review of the literature in these areas. Also, the results from three-point bend drop weight impact tests on two span lengths of glass fiber-reinforced composites are presented and compared.
Crashworthiness and Scaling Issues in Using Composite Materials for Guardrail Applications
1995
29 pages
Report
No indication
English
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