Testing the results of a passenger vehicle collision with a rigid barrier

High accident index in Poland, including one of the highest death rates in EU, forces undertaking the intense works in order to improve traffic safety. Published road accident statisti cs indicate that the most dangerous accidents include a vehicle collis ion with a tree, post or other road object. The road safety barriers make th e road infrastructure elements that can significantly protect against that type of acciden ts. The work presen ts basic tasks and requirements imposed on the barriers. Problems related to a proper selection of the barriers have been also highlighted. The tools facilitating the barrier design in clude numerical modelling. The modelling has been done by means of the LS-DYNA software, using the fin ite element meth od. A general structure and a developed barrier model as well as veh icle model have been presented. The conditions of the numerical tests have been also specified. The work presents the results of influence of car impact angle with a rigi d safety barrier. Presented results refer to a car of mass of 900 kg, making a basis for the tes ts of the limiting systems for several limiting levels: including normal limit N2 (according to EN 1317-2) . Compared to standard requirements, the scope of numerical tests has been extended by other car impact angl e values. The work presents vehicle tra jectories and deformations of their bodies. It al so includes examples of velocities and acceleration courses and acceleratio n severity indexes (ASI) calculated on their basis. Obtained results indicate that the barrier loca tion angle has a high influence on the safety level of the car passengers as well as on the car motion trajectory after collision.