Performance evaluation of steel and composite bridge safety barriers by vehicle crash simulation

The performance of full-scale steel and composite bridge safety barriers under vehicle crash is evaluated by using the nonlinear explicit finite element code LS-DYNA. Two types of vehicles used in this study are passenger car and truck, and the performance criteria considered include structural strength and deformation, occupant protection, and post-crash vehicle behavior. It can be concluded that the composite safety barrier satisfies all performance criteria of vehicle crash. Although the steel safety barrier satisfies the performance criteria of occupant protection and post-crash vehicle behavior, it fails to satisfy the performance criterion of deformation. In all performance evaluations, the composite safety barrier exhibits a superior performance in comparing with the steel safety barrier.