Portable water filled barrier with internal honeycomb cells
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Abstract
Longitudinal traffic barriers are widely used as road safety features in the
United States to keep vehicles within the roadway and prevent them from colliding
with dangerous obstacles. Portable water-filled barriers (PWFBs) are one type of
temporary longitudinal traffic barriers, commonly used in speed limit zones and,
roadside working zones. Current market PWFBs are cost-effective and exhibiting
high efficiency while resisting vehicle impact at low speed. However, high-level
impact severity results in structural failure and extensive lateral deflection. Based on
evaluation criteria from Manual of Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH), some
PWFBs are inefficient to meet the requirements from newly published evaluation
documents. Since newly developed PWFB with interior honeycomb cells aims to
improve energy absorption behavior and structural resistance in terms of impact
loading. The PWFB with internal cells is designed based on the prototype of the JB
32 barrier, where quadrangle-shaped honeycomb cells are bounded on the interior
surface. In the early stage of this research, small-scale barrier specimens are obtained
via 3D printing and pendulum impact testing is developed to investigate the energy
absorption behavior of barrier structure filled with water. Additionally, numerical
simulation is conducted via Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software (ABAQUS).
Utilizing the obtained FE results, a parametric study is used to further validate the
observation from testing. With both testing and numerical results, the energy
absorption exhibited by water and structural strength of the system can be addressed.
A design recommendation and optimal condition combining each design parameter is
given regarding the conducted parametric study.