Book Description

Barrier installations are warranted (or justified) only at highway locations where the consequence of an errant vehicle leaving the roadway is judged to be more hazardous than the impact with the barrier installation. A six degree-of-freedom mathematical model was found to be useful in describing dynamic behavior of a vehicle during impact. Predictions of vehicle and barrier behavior correlated with results obtained from full-scale crash tests. Crash conditions simulated with a computer were used to identify and evaluate vehicle static and dynamic as well as barrier parameters. Vehicle weight, yaw mass moment of inertia, and deformation constant were found to be significant.