If an errant vehicle hits the end of a guardrail head-on, the rail can penetrate the vehicle and cause serious injuries or fatalities. An end-terminal for open-section box-beam guardrail was developed at TTI. If impacted by a vehicle, this terminal rides along the rail by extruding and flattening the rail, and deflecting it away from the vehicle. The extrusion process dissipates the kinetic energy of the vehicle and brings it to a controlled stop. The box-beam extruder was developed through extensive use of LS-DYNA finite element simulations and several component level and full-scale crash tests.
Reference
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N.M. Sheikh, R.P. Bligh, D.L. Bullard, C.E. Buth, D.C. Alberson, A. Abu-Odeh, H.E. Ross. Development of Energy-Absorbing End Terminal for Open Box Beam Guardrail. 9th International LS-DYNA Users Conference, Dearborn, MI. June 2006.