The Dynamic Analysis And Statics Test Research Of Highway Plastic-Steel Safety Barriers

With the quick economical development in China, the highway construction is also booming, consequently, the highway safety barriers as a traffic safety means have been widely applied. In Europe, USA and Japan, the highway safety barriers are always subject to a large amount of Impact tests and modulus analysis. But in China, due to tight test budget and some other reasons, the safety barriers studies lag behind, and the relevant European, American and Japanese codes have been followed. It is of great significance to study the highway safety barriers nowadays when the highway construction is fast growing in China.By comparing the currently used highway safety barriers, the paper identifies the main defects of waved beam steel guardrails that are in wide use and proposes a new type of Plastic-Steel safety barriers accordingly. By finite element analysis of the Plastic-Steel safety barriers and waved beam safety barriers with 20 different cross-sections, the two cross-sections of Plastic-Steel safety barriers with similar performance to that of waved beam guardrails are identified. The specimens of two PVC safety barriers have been developed by mould and static structural tests have been conducted. As demonstrated by the tests, Plastic-Steel safety barriers feature higher failure load capacity, better compliance and cost-effective than the waved beam guardrails, so it would be a good substitution and have great market potentiality.