Use of Crash Barriers to Help Prevent Loss of Property or Life

Traffic barriers are also known as guardrails in America and crash barriers in Britain. In India, they must conform to IRC: 119, NCHRP: 350 norms. Barriers are used to avoid serious damages in case of road accidents and collisions. They are meant to keep vehicles within the roadway and to prevent collisions with obstacles such as drains and transverse slopes.

Assess conditions to place barriers

Before we place barriers, we must assess the road conditions for safety and viability. Placement is done on the basis of their distance from the edge of the roadway. Other considerations are shape, rigidity, and size. One must consider how necessary it is for the sign to exist. Small road signs and a few larger ones need not be protected since the protection itself might pose a traffic hazard. Here the clear zone concept comes into play while assessing the need for protection. You can get more details from the W Beam Highway Crash Barrier Suppliers.

The clear zone is the recoverable horizontal lateral distance a vehicle may travel from the highway to the crash barrier and back to the highway in a safe way. Common sites for crash barrier constructions are bridge ends, drainage crossing, and culverts, near roadway limits, near light or illumination poles that may hinder traffic. The types of barriers used, depends on their properties such as barrier stiffness and functions.

Rollover barriers function

Among the various barrier functions, they protect the vehicle from turnover in case the slope is so much that the vehicle could possibly overturn. This way it prevents rollover crashes. Near bridges or piers where we have large water bodies, the collision might cause damage to the structure of the water body. Here a barrier will prove adequate to take care of any collision. Median barriers are used when there are many lanes on the road and you must prevent oncoming traffic from colliding with a vehicle going the other way.

Another important area where we need barriers is a work zone. Often, work takes place in close proximity to traffic lanes. Work barriers can be of two kinds- water filled barriers and temporary concrete barriers. The water filled barriers are made of steel reinforced plastic boxes that we may put in place when needed. We put them in a place where needed and then fill them with water.

Ease of use

The big advantage is that it is easy to assemble and we do not need any heavy lifting equipment. The shortcoming is that we cannot use them in freezing weather because water is the ballast here. Metal Beam Crash Barrier Manufacturer can show you the various models they have for this.

Median barriers help to keep the traffic in their own lane all the time. Here they must be deformable from both sides since the vehicle will run on both sides. A bridge barrier is built along the sides of a bridge over a railway crossing, a river, or a canal to prevent vehicles from falling over its sides. Usually, they are made of multi-rail, tubular steel or reinforced concrete parapet.

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