Effect of Soil Properties on Safety Performance of W-beam Guardrail

W-beam guardrails are the most widely used road safety barriers worldwide. They are used for protecting vehicle occupants on dangerous areas of roadways. The ability of Wbeam guardrails to absorb some of the crash energy reduces the risk of injury for vehicle occupants and limits deformation of impacting vehicles. Once the rail separates from the posts, the rail forms a redirection ribbon, guiding the vehicles away from the nearby hazard. Thus, the soil-post interaction in W-beam guardrails play a critical role in the manner in which errant vehicles interact with safety barriers. All road safety barriers used on European highways are designed according to the European standard EN 1317. This study applied the finite element code LS-DYNA for evaluating the safety performance of W-beam guardrail when the post rammed into various soil properties. Four crash test simulations were conducted for evaluating the crashworthiness of the W-beam guardrail according to European Standard EN 1317. The results have demonstrated that the soil properties does not affect the impact severity (ASI, THIV) but affects working width. Keywords-crashworthiness; EN1317; LS-DYNA; W-beam guardrail