Development And Mash Tl 4 Evaluation Of Txdot Large Scupper Median Barrier For Flood Prone Areas

Development and MASH TL-4 Evaluation of TxDOT Large-scupper Median Barrier for Flood-prone Areas

Concrete median barriers are designed to mitigate serious cross-median crashes by preventing penetration of errant vehicles into oncoming traffic. When implemented in flood-prone areas, however, solid concrete median barriers can act as a dam to floodwaters, as recently seen in Texas during Hurricane Harvey or in Louisiana and Pennsylvania following severe storms. These severe weather events raise the height of floodwaters and increase the severity of flooding on highways and surrounding roads and communities. In this study, new median barrier options with openings were investigated as a way to reduce flooding. Finite element simulations were used to aid investigation and evaluation of the designs, and laboratory testing was performed to evaluate the hydraulic efficiency of barrier designs in a variety of simulated flood conditions. A concrete single-slope profile median barrier with a large scupper was selected for crash testing following Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) Test Level 4 impact conditions and evaluation criteria. The median barrier design was deemed MASH compliant and is ready for implementation in areas susceptible to flooding, with the goals of reducing flooding severity, decreasing associated risk to motorists, and reducing the level of flood damage to both highways and surrounding areas.

Development and MASH TL-4 Evaluation of TXDOT Rubber Mounted Single Slope Barrier

MASH TL-3 Transition Between Median Guardrail and Median Concrete Barrier

The purpose of this research was to develop a Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) Test Level 3 (TL-3) compliant transition between a median guardrail and median concrete barrier, and then test the design according to MASH TL-3 crash testing guidelines. The design was developed using finite element computer simulations. This report provides details on the computer simulations, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) median transition system, the crash tests and results, and the performance assessment of the median transition for MASH TL-3 transition evaluation criteria. The TxDOT median transition met the performance criteria for MASH TL-3 transitions.