NCHRP Report 350 Compliance Test 3-11 of the 1.07-Meter Vertical Wall Bridge Railing (Prepared for TTI Project No. 405511-1.) (FHWA-RD-96-174)

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has recently adopted the new performance evaluation guidelines for roadside safety features set forth in National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 350. Most of the existing roadside features were tested according to the previous guidelines contained in NCHRP Report 230 and there are questions as to how the existing roadside safety features would perform under the new guidelines. Specifically, there is concern that existing bridge railing systems, including the 1.07-meter vertical wall bridge railing, may not perform satisfactorily to contain and redirect the 2000P test vehicle, i.e., the 2000-kg pickup truck, and the vehicle may vault or go over the barrier or roll over. A series of crash tests were therefore conducted with the 2000P test vehicle on the more commonly used bridge railing systems, one of which was the 1.07-meter vertical wall bridge railing. All these pickup truck crash tests were conducted under NCHRP Report 350 test level 3 conditions, i.e., impacting the length-of-need section at a nominal speed and angle of 100 km/in and 25 degrees.|This report contains the results of a crash test conducted on the 1.07-meter vertical wall bridge railing with a 2000-kg pickup truck under NCHRP Report 350 test level 3 conditions. The purpose of the test was to determine if the bridge railing would perform satisfactorily with the 2000P test vehicle under the new NCHRP Report 350 requirements.|The 1.07-meter vertical wall bridge railing is judged to have met all evaluation criteria set forth in NCHRP Report 350 for test designation 3-11.