A new, side-mounted, steel beam-and-post bridge rail was designed, crash tested, and evaluated according to safety performance guidelines included in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) for Test Level 4 (TL-4). The new bridge rail system was designed to be compatible with multiple bridge decks, including cast-in-place concrete slabs and prestressed box beams. Additionally, the bridge rail was designed to remain crashworthy after roadway overlays up to 3 in. thick. The bridge rail was designed and optimized based on strength, installation cost, weight per foot, and constructability. The new bridge rail consisted of three rectangular steel tube rails supported by standard steel cross section, W6 × 15 steel posts spaced at 8 ft on-center. The upper rail was a 12 × 4 × ¼ in. hollow structural section (HSS) steel tube, and the lower two rails were 8 × 6 × ¼ in. HSS steel tubes. The top mounting heights for the upper, middle, and lower rails were 39 in., 32 in., and 20 in. above the surface of the deck, respectively. A new, side-mounted, post-to-deck connection was also developed that incorporated HSS steel spacer tubes that offset the posts 6 in. from the bridge deck and aligned the face of the bridge rail with the edge of the deck. Thus, the traversable width of the bridge was maximized. Three full-scale crash tests corresponding to the MASH TL-4 testing matrix were performed on the new bridge rail. All three crash tests successfully contained and redirected the vehicles and satisfied all MASH evaluation criteria.


    Access

    Download

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Development of a Test Level 4, Side-Mounted, Steel Tube Bridge Rail


    Additional title:

    Transportation Research Record




    Publication date :

    2020-06-06




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Development of a Test Level 3 Approach Guardrail Transition to Steel Tube Bridge Rail

    Rasmussen, Jennifer D. / Rosenbaugh, Scott K. / Faller, Ronald K. et al. | Transportation Research Record | 2022


    Pickup box adaptable side-mounted rail

    LEFF YAFFE JONATAN / MERINO CARLOS EMILIO / MUELLER TODD JOHN et al. | European Patent Office | 2020

    Free access

    PICKUP BOX ADAPTABLE SIDE-MOUNTED RAIL

    LEFF YAFFE JONATAN / MERINO CARLOS EMILIO / MUELLER TODD JOHN et al. | European Patent Office | 2018

    Free access

    Development of a Low-Profile Bridge Rail for Test level 2 Applications

    K. A. Polivka / R. K. Faller / D. L. Sicking et al. | NTIS | 2002