Date: Friday, November 17th, at 9:00 a.m.
Location: 136 Whittier Research Center (MwRSF Videowall room)
Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Schmidt
Guardrail end terminals shield the end of roadside guardrail installations to protect errant motorists from the risk of rail penetration through the vehicle or causing a rapid deceleration. Energy-absorbing end terminals absorb an errant vehicle’s kinetic energy through rail deformation or other means to safely decelerate the vehicle in a controlled manner. All modern energy-absorbing terminals are proprietary, and few terminals have passed the safety evaluation criteria in the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) to be installed on the Midwest Guardrail System (MGS). To provide a terminal to state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) that can be used in testing beyond the state-of-the-practice and to address the need for energy-absorbing guardrail end terminals tested to MASH safety evaluation criteria, it was desirable to develop a new generic energy-absorbing guardrail end terminal.
To accomplish this goal, this Phase I study conducted preliminary analysis and design. First, patents and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) eligibility letters were reviewed to identify energy-absorbing terminals and their energy-absorption methods. Next, brainstorming was conducted to identify methods that could be used in a new terminal. after which preliminary calculations and drawings were completed. Thereafter, design path options and preliminary concepts were presented to the sponsor, followed by additional calculations and brainstorming. The final terminal geometry was designed using the 3D nonlinear finite element analysis software LS-DYNA to simulate a terminal translating down a W-beam guardrail. A complete prototype drawing set was produced and submitted for a quote, which was determined to be complicated to fabricate and more expensive than desired. Finally, additional brainstorming and design refinement using LS-DYNA followed to reduce the cost of the terminal and the resistance force it produced. Conclusions were drawn and recommendations were presented for continuing this work in a second phase.
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