A Study on Highway Guardrail Design Improvement

• Main Author: Hasliza bt Omar, Hasliza
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi Petronas 2010
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/1539/1/Hasliza_bt_Omar%282%29.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/1539/

In traffic engineering, guardrails prevent vehicles from veering off the roadway into oncoming traffic, crashing against solid objects or falling into a ravine and also absorb the impact from the car and at the same time reduce the probability of severe injury by increase the contact time in the impulse reaction. A secondary objective is keeping the vehicle upright while deflected along the guardrail. In most cases guardrails would not be able to withstand the impact of a vehicle just by the strength of the individual posts in the area hit by the vehicle. Instead, the guardrail is effectively one strong band that transfers the force of the vehicle to multiple posts beyond the impact area or into a ground anchor at the end of the guardrail.[1]