EXPERIMENTAL-NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF STEEL - FOAM ENERGY - ABSORBING PANELS FOR ROAD BARRIERS MODERNIZATION

The works on steel – foam e nergy–absorbing structures for the road barrier W-beam guardrail were carried out because of the necessity of increasing the passive s afety of road barriers [1-5]. A road barrier guardrail is made of steel sections. These types of sections are c haracterized by good strain properties, although their energy–absorbing abilities and pos sibilities for “softer” vehicle impact energy are unsatisfactory. In order to increase energy – absorption on the road barrier guardrail additional tin–foam sections were used. Experimental tests on the modified road barrier guardrail were carried out on a testing mac hine INSTRON at the Facul ty of Mechanics and A pplied Informatics of the Military Academy of Technology. Tw o meters long W-beam guar drail was investigated in a three point bending test, perpendicularly and under the angle of 20o. As a res ult of the experiment al research diagrams of dependence of bending force on displacement were obtained. On the basis of aforementioned diagrams the energy that was absorbed by i ndividual road barrier elements: tin coating, foam insert and steel guardrail, was e stimated. Obtained results of the experi mental research were also compared with the results of the numerical si mulation of the finite elements method in LS-DYNA system.