Author(s)

T Y J Hui & T X Yu

Abstract

Used as guardrails, corrugated steel W-beam is the most popular roadside energy absorbing system around the world. Its main function is to contain and redirect out-of-control vehicles and to dissipate the vehicle’s kinetic energy in a crash event in a controlled manner through large plastic deformation of the beam-system, This helps to reduce the physical damage to the car occupants in a crash accident. This paper reports our recent experimental study on one-third scaled-down W-beam samples. The beams were tested under both quasi-static and impact three-point bending. The load-deflection characteristics, the global flexural deformation and the cross-sectional distortion were recorded to quantify the static and dynamic behaviour of the W-beams. The effects of different support conditions and end-constraints on the W-beam performance were examined. From the experimental observations and measurements, the dynamic deformation mechanism of the scaled-down W-beams with different end constraints were analysed and compared with its static counterpart.

Keywords