Book Description

This report presents the development and crash testing of a surface-mounted median guardrail on concrete. The research team developed several preliminary design concepts of the median guardrail. One of these was selected by the Texas Department of Transportation for further development through finite element simulation analysis and full-scale crash testing. The safety performance of the final design of the surface-mounted median guardrail was evaluated in accordance with the guidelines included in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH), Second Edition (1). The design was evaluated for Test Level 3 (TL-3) of MASH, for which the following two crash tests were performed: 1. MASH Test 3-10: An 1100C small passenger sedan weighing 2420 lb., impacting the median guardrail while traveling at a speed and angle of 62 mi/h and 25 degrees. 2. MASH Test 3-11: A 2270P pickup truck weighing 5000 lb., impacting the median guardrail while traveling at a speed and angle of 62 mi/h and 25 degrees. The new surface-mounted median guardrail design passed the MASH evaluation criteria for both tests. This report provides details on the surface-mounted median guardrail, the crash tests and results, and the performance assessment of the median guardrail using the evaluation criteria of MASH TL-3 for longitudinal barriers.