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Improved Concrete Barrier System

October 4, 2011

Road and Bridges article on an improved concrete barrier system developed by the Center for Transportation Computational Mechanics. Read the article.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Improved concrete barrier system

Abu-Odeh and Sheikh profiled in FEA Information Engineering Journal

October 4, 2011

TTI researchers Akram Abu-Odeh and Nauman Mansoor Sheikh were recently profiled in the FEA Information Engineering Journal newsletter. Read the profiles on page 10-11 of the December 2009 edition of the FEA newsletter.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Akram Abu-Odeh, Nauman Mansoor Sheikh

Low-Deflection Portable Concrete Barrier

October 4, 2011

“Low-Deflection Portable Concrete Barrier” earned the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB’s) K. B. Woods Award for its authors Roger P. Bligh, Nauman Mansoor Sheikh, Dean C. Alberson, and Akram Y. Abu-Odeh of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI). Read the press release.

Filed Under: Accolades Tagged With: low deflection portable concrete barrier

Application of a Precast Concrete Barrier Adjacent to a Steep Roadside Slope

October 4, 2011

The paper, “Application of a Precast Concrete Barrier Adjacent to a Steep Roadside Slope,” was the 2010 winner of the Practice-Ready Paper Award sponsored by the Transportation Research Board’s Design and Construction Group. This award is given each year to an outstanding published paper that is judged to have the best potential for immediate implementation in the design and construction of transportation facilities.Read the press release and an article that appeared in a 2007 edition of the Texas Transportation Researcher.

Filed Under: Accolades Tagged With: Precast Concrete Barrier Adjacent to a Steep Roadside Slope

Profile featured on Argonne National Laboratory website

October 3, 2011

Profile of the performance of roadside hardware simulation using LS-DYNA® by the Center for Transportation Computational Mechanics.The profile appeared on the Argonne National Laboratory website.

Filed Under: Accolades

Smooth transitions

October 3, 2011

The above sequence of photos shows a successful crash test of the transition guardrail section developed by TTI researchers.

TTI researchers develop cost-effective guardrail design

As the automobiles on our roadways have changed from predominately passenger cars to trucks and sports utility vehicles (SUV), so must the roadway design standards used by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) change to accommodate these vehicles. Guardrail bridge transitions represent one of these areas. The increased stiffness needed in the transition to safely contain and redirect heavier trucks and SUVs made guardrail bridge transitions costly and complex to construct.

Researchers at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) recently completed a project for TxDOT that modified the standards for low-speed guardrail-to-bridge rail transitions. A transition is a section of guardrail that ties a roadside guardrail and bridge rail together at a bridge approach.

“If a flexible roadside guardrail is connected to a rigid bridge rail, there is a basic incompatibility between the two in terms of their stiffness,” says Roger Bligh, associate research engineer with TTI and project supervisor. “If a vehicle impacts the guardrail just in advance of the bridge rail end, the guardrail will deflect, but the bridge rail will not. So the vehicle ‘pockets’ into the end of the bridge rail, resulting in a severe crash. In this project, we designed a transition section that solves this problem by smoothly transitioning the stiffness from the flexible guardrail to the more rigid bridge rail.”

Using computer modeling, researchers analyzed several guardrail transition designs for low-speed roadways. The selected system achieved smooth transition stiffness by reducing the spacing of posts and using two guardrail beam elements.

“Initially, we looked at design alternatives using computer analysis to provide an indicator of successful impact performance before full scale crash testing,” says Bligh. “We wanted to make sure that the design being crash tested had a good probability of passing, and yet was the most economical and cost effective solution for the state.”

The project concluded with a successful first crash test that was performed on the design selected in conjunction with TxDOT engineers. TxDOT has implemented a new standard detail sheet of the design that is now available statewide for use on roadways. It has also gained some national attention.

“Safety is the top priority for TxDOT. We are always looking for ways to improve the safety of our roadway system for the traveling public,” says Rory Meza, TxDOT director of roadway design. “Research projects such as this one provide us with the opportunity to be innovative and to implement the improvements in a short time frame. The low-speed transitional section provides the added safety at a reasonable cost, using standard materials readily available in the industry.”

Filed Under: News Tagged With: guardrails

Silvetri publishes article in EA Information Engineering Journal newsletter

April 3, 2011

Post Doctoral Research Associate Chiara Silvetri recently published an article titled “Investigation of LS-DYNA® Modeling for Active Muscle Tissues that appeared in the EA Information Engineering Journal newsletter.

Abstract:

This study is aimed at investigating and comparing one-dimensional and three-dimensional finite element models of active muscle tissue. Skeletal muscle is a very complicated biological structure to model due to its non-homogenous and non-linear material properties as well as its complex geometry. Additionally, forces generated from muscle activation are directly related to the muscle length and contraction velocity. Finite element discrete Hill-based elements are laregely used to simulate muscles in both passive and active states. There are, however, several shortfalls to utilizing one-dimensional elements, such as the impossibility to represent muscle physical mass and complex lines of action.

Read the full article in the  April 2011 edition  of the FEA newsletter.

Filed Under: Accolades

Thwarting Terror through Teamwork

June 3, 2007

Agencies pool resources for national security

The worst of situations brought out the best in collaborative research efforts for a group of agencies dedicated to making our nation safer. Since 2004, Sandia National Laboratories and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) have collaborated on projects for several federal agencies including the United States Department of Energy, Technical Support Working Group (a consortium of federal agencies), the United States Department of State, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Most recently, TTI and Sandia Labs have teamed up to successfully test security barriers aimed at securing our nation’s borders.

Read more.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Thwarting Terror through Teamwork

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