Computational and experimental crash analysis of the road safety barrier Z. Ren * , M. Vesenjak University of Maribor, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Smetanova ul 17, SI-2000 Maribor, Slovenia Received 12 July 2004; accepted 14 December 2004 Available online 7 April 2005 Abstract The paper describes the computational analysis and experimental crash tests of a new road safety barrier. The purpose of this research was to develop and evaluate a full-scale computational model of the road safety barrier for use in crash simulations and to further compare the computational results with real crash test data. The impact severity and stiffness of the new design have been evaluated with the dynamic nonlinear elasto-plastic analysis of the three-dimensional road safety barrier within the framework of the finite element method with LS-DYNA code. Comparison of computational and experimental results proved the correctness of the computational model. The tests have also shown that the new safety barrier assures controllable crash energy absorption which in turn increases the safety of vehicle occupants. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Safety barrier; Roadside safety; Computational crash analysis; Experimental crash test 1. Introduction One of the major problems in road transportation is to assure adequate safety level for road users. To maintain and improve road safety, it is often necessary to install certain devices that are intended to restrain vehicles and pedestrians from entering dangerous areas. The road safety barriers that are designed accord- ing to the European EN 1317 standard provide certain levels of vehicle containment, properly redirect er- rant vehicles back on the road and provide guidance for pedestrians and other road users. To provide appropriate safety levels for impacting vehicle occupants, the safety barriers (Fig. 1) should be designed so as to absorb as much impact energy as possible through their deformation and at the same 1350-6307/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.engfailanal.2004.12.033 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +386 2 220 7702; fax: +386 2 220 7990. E-mail addresses: ren@uni-mb.si (Z. Ren), m.vesenjak@uni-mb.si (M. Vesenjak). Engineering Failure Analysis 12 (2005) 963–973 www.elsevier.com/locate/engfailanal