An 18-wheeler crashes into a concrete barrier at TTI’s Proving Grounds. For the first time, the test was streamed live via the Internet for clients across the country.

Providing live streaming crash tests was the brainchild of Dean Alberson, assistant agency director and manager of the TTI Crashworthy Structures Program, who began looking into the possibility more than a year ago.

“Having clients able to view their crash test live at our facility from back in their home office as it happens seemed like a logical next step for us,” Alberson says. “First of all, it would save them the expense of traveling. And there have been times when a crash test had to be postponed because of weather or other conditions. In those cases, the client wasted a trip here.”

The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) crash test involved an 18-wheeler traveling at 50 miles-per-hour and crashing at a 15-degree angle into a concrete barrier that was placed on top of a retaining wall.

“There were 176 computers that viewed the crash test,” Brad Hoover, TTI chief information officer, says. “We’re not sure how many people viewed, but it is clear that this initial live crash test was a popular event among NCHRP panel members.”

Based on the success of this first live-streaming crash test, TTI might offer it to other clients in the future. As for the crash test itself, it had two objectives according to TTI Roadside Safety Program Manager Roger Bligh, who was the principal investigator on the project.

People view a retaining wall at TTI’s Proving Grounds after the 18-wheeler crash test.

“We wanted to determine how much force was transmitted in the underlying retaining wall so we can develop proper design guidelines for both the wall and the barrier system,” he says. “All indications are that the test went well, and the design of the wall and the barrier did their job.”

Co-principal investigator Jean-Louis Briaud, manager of TTI’s Geotechnical and Geoenviornmental Program, says numerous four-dimensional numerical simulations were performed on the retaining wall before the crash test was performed.

“Because of space limitations, more and more of these retaining walls — called mechanically stabilized earth walls — are being used for road construction in urban areas. It’s important that we know that they will hold up during a crash,” Briaud says.

Akram Abu-Odeh, Roger Bligh and Dean Alberson (l to r) with their patent awards from the Office of Technology Commercialization. Patent winners not pictured are Lance Bullard and Gene Buth.

Members of TTI’s Roadside Safety and Physical Security Division were honored ­­­last month by The Texas A&M University System Office of Technology Commercialization for a highway safety product patent issued in 2011. Patent number US 7,883,075 B2 is for a new guardrail end terminal they designed and tested. The product will soon be manufactured by Trinity Highway Products.

Akram Abu-Odeh, Gene Buth, Lance Bullard, Dean Alberson and Roger Bligh were honored for their invention, which will be marketed under the name Soft Stop.

“I believe this new guardrail system is the next generation of end terminals,” Dean Alberson, assistant agency director, explains. When the end terminal is struck by a vehicle, the tension on the guardrail is not released like the other guardrail terminals. “Upon impact, the Soft Stop terminal squeezes the guardrail vertically into a series of folded plates that are diverted under the vehicle once they exit the head of the device,” Alberson explains.

In addition to the TTI employees, researchers from the university, the Texas A&M Health Science Center, Texas AgriLife Research and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station were honored for their 2011 patent awards.

“This event gives us the chance to formally recognize the researchers within the A&M System whose work has significant real-world applications,” said Chancellor John Sharp at the ceremony. “Through commercialization of their inventions, research that began in a lab now has the chance to extend its reach and make a difference in people’s lives.”

Other key research area presentations by TTI personnel included:

• Steve Roop provided a status update on the Freight Shuttle System, which was conceived to resolve freight transportation’s most pressing deficiency: the lack of a system suitable for high-volume traffic between two points located less than 600 miles apart.
• John Mounce briefly reviewed the Center for Transportation Safety’s 10-year history and highlighted several key program areas including distracted and impaired driving.
• Paul Carlson and Jeff Miles lead a tour of the Visibility Research Laboratory.
• Bill Stockton provided an update on the groundbreaking transportation planning I-35 project.
• David Ellis reviewed transportation financing mechanisms and The Transportation Revenue Estimator and Needs Determination System (T.R.E.N.D.S.)

The presentations concluded with a presentation from Roger Bligh on roadside safety and physical security.

TTI Student Technician Hillary-Anne Metcalfe measures a component using the FARO arm.

To further its effort under a grant from the U.S. State Department, the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) has acquired a computer-modeling scanning system that ensures the Institute’s stature as one of the premier crash-testing facilities in the world.

The three-dimensional scanning device, called a FARO® Edge, allows TTI to scan vehicle parts and components of roadside safety and perimeter security devices for use in computer modeling to predict how they might react in a crash. (For more information about the FARO scanning system, view the company’s website at http://www.faro.com/edge/us.)

“Combining this new tool with our impact analysis software, TTI will be able to offer added value to our sponsors,” says Research Scientist Akram Abu-Odeh of TTI’s Roadside Safety and Physical Security Division.

“Full-scale crash tests are very expensive,” says Abu-Odeh. Computer modeling can be used to evaluate the impact performance of a device and, if needed, to permit the device to be modified prior to performing expensive crash tests.” In addition, Abu-Odeh says that computer modeling reduces the overall development cost of a product by decreasing the number of crash tests needed to arrive at a successful design.

The laser-scanning device is being used to meticulously map each component of a recently manufactured truck.

The impact analysis software used by TTI has the potential to save sponsors thousands of dollars when conducting full-scale crash tests.

“Once we scan the entire truck with the FARO arm, we can begin doing computer-simulated crash tests on the various security devices being used at U.S. facilities overseas,” says TTI Associate Transportation Researcher Michael Brackin, who is co-leading the scanning project with Abu-Odeh.

It will take a full year to scan each component and develop the detailed finite element model of the truck.

“We are extremely pleased to have this sophisticated technology available for our program,” TTI Assistant Agency Director Dean Alberson says. “It greatly enhances our research capabilities and will undoubtedly open the door for
other work.”

SLIP SAFE Breakaway System Goes Big in Kansas

This SLIP SAFE™ sign performed as designed in a crash in Kansas.

Joe Frazzetta of Nucor Steel-Marion Inc. is a believer. He decided to approach state departments of transportation (DOTs) with a Texas Transportation Institute (TTI)-designed and crash-tested product that has, for the most part, “needed a jump start regarding promotion and marketing.”

It’s called a SLIP SAFE™ breakaway system, designed for locations where signs are frequently hit. When a vehicle impacts a sign post, Nucor’s slip base allows the post to release from the base, causing minimal damage to the vehicle and the sign, depending on vehicle speed. The base remains in place, and with a new retainer plate, the existing sign and post are easily replaced, saving DOTs maintenance costs.

“The Kansas Department of Transportation [KDOT] told me they had a problem location where warning signs were always being knocked down by traffic,” Frazzetta said. “Working with KDOT, we put up SLIP SAFE units with our channel posts as part of a trial effort.”

Sure enough, a sign was hit, and someone with KDOT went out to take a look. The employee took pictures and sent an email to his boss. Those pictures and the email found their way to Frazetta’s inbox: “The only damage was that the sign was bent a little. The system worked like it was designed to. Great product. The Nucor system has less parts and less damage when hit, very easy to repair.”

Tried and True — ET-2000 Guardrail Still Saving Lives

Familiar sight: the ET-2000 guardrail end treatment.

Most drivers throughout Texas and the country have seen the black-and-yellow-striped guardrail impact device known as the ET-2000 and not given it a second thought. Donny Ohana, undoubtedly, will never see them the same.

Recently, Ohana, his brother and two friends were traveling in a small car down a feeder road in Houston off I-610. As he sped up to enter the ramp, he lost control of his vehicle and impacted the guardrail head-on, eventually coming to a stop on a hill on the roadside.

“I looked around and saw that I was OK, and that my brothers and friends were OK,” says Ohana. “I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I was just sitting there scared.

“I’ll never forget this. One of the cops came up to me and said, ‘You know, you are very lucky because if the old guardrail was still there or a different system was in place, it would have gone right through your windshield.’”

The Texas Transportation Institute (TTI)-developed guardrail worked as designed, curling up upon impact and dissipating the forward motion of the car.

“That is one of the most notable inventions and safety devices that has ever been developed at TTI,” says retired TTI Research Engineer Hayes Ross, who was the principal investigator for the ET-2000. “You don’t have to go along far on any highway in the United States or other countries to recognize some of the hardware and safety features that were developed at TTI.”

This Issue

Safety Is No Laughing Matter

Volume 47, Number 3
September 2011
Issue Overview

On this page:

• Scanning Facility Opens at Riverside, Broadens Research Capabilities
• SLIP SAFE Breakaway System Goes Big in Kansas
• Tried and True — ET-2000 Guardrail Still Saving Lives
• For More Information – Scanning Facility

Scanning Facility

TTI Research Scientist Akram Abu-Odeh (right) and TTI Student Technician Michael Brock prepare a component for measurement.

“We are extremely pleased to have this sophisticated technology available for our program. It greatly enhances our research capabilities and will undoubtedly open the door for other work.”
Dean Alberson,
TTI assistant agency director

For more information:

Akram Abu-Odeh
(979) 862-3379
abu-odeh@tamu.edu
or
Michael Brackin
(979) 845-2019
m-brackin@ttimail.tamu.edu

SLIP SAFE Breakaway System

“The only damage was that the sign was bent a little. The system worked like it was designed to. Great product…”
email from KDOT

ET-2000 Guardrail

“I’ll never forget this. One of the cops came up to me and said, ‘You know, you are very lucky because if the old guardrail was still there or a different system was in place, it would have gone right through your windshield.’”
Donny Ohana

To see a video featuring Donny Ohana and other TTI videos, please visit our YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/ttitamu.

]]> http://tti.tamu.edu/2011/09/01/tti-research-makes-the-roadside-safer/feed/ 0 http://tti.tamu.edu/2011/08/05/crash-survivor-credits-a-tti-technology-for-saving-his-life/ http://tti.tamu.edu/2011/08/05/crash-survivor-credits-a-tti-technology-for-saving-his-life/#comments Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:27:47 +0000 Tobey http://tti.tamu.edu/?p=5816 If you drive much around Texas or around the country, there is no doubt you have seen the ET-2000 in use on guardrails. Watch this testimonial of a roadside crash survivor, Donny Ohana, and one of the inventors of this TTI-developed technology, Hayes Ross, that Ohana says saved his life. For more information about TTI’s crash testing program, visit http://tti.tamu.edu/crashtesting/.

]]> http://tti.tamu.edu/2011/08/05/crash-survivor-credits-a-tti-technology-for-saving-his-life/feed/ 0 http://tti.tamu.edu/2010/09/01/celebrating-60-years-of-innovation-a-history-of-saving-lives-time-and-resources/ http://tti.tamu.edu/2010/09/01/celebrating-60-years-of-innovation-a-history-of-saving-lives-time-and-resources/#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:32:19 +0000 Chris Sasser http://tti.tamu.edu/?p=1249 Celebrating 60 Years of Innovation: A history of saving lives, time and resources

The original 1950 charter of the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), given by the Texas A&M Board of Directors, charged the Institute with enlisting the broad resources of the college in all forms of transportation research, while giving students the opportunity to study and work in the transportation profession. This agreement solidified the Cooperative Research Program between the then-Texas Highway Department and TTI. Over the last six decades, TTI has provided accurate and timely research to address the state and nation’s most pressing transportation concerns. TTI research recommendations have consistently delivered results to its research sponsors — now numbering more than 200 annually around the globe. The world has been transformed since 1950. Today’s transportation challenges are magnified many times over in size, scope and importance to our economy and quality of life. The need for results-oriented transportation research has never been greater.

Human Factors and Roadside Safety

 

Left: Texas A&M University Associate Professor Emeritus Rodger Koppa, one of the pioneers of human factors research at TTI, specialized in the design of adaptive equipment for disabled drivers. Hundreds of disabled citizens have benefited from his research over the years.

Right: Dr. Teddy J. Hirsh’s research team invented the “Texas Crash Cushion” in the 1960s. Fatalities due to collisions with concrete abutments were completely eliminated in Houston, going from 27 in seven years to none in the two years following its installation on Houston freeways. Here, Hirsh and his team examine a successful crash test with then-Secretary of Transportation Alan S. Boyd and his wife.

Economics and Freight Movement

 

Top Left: (left to right) In this photo from 1968, Texas A&M President Earl Rudder, Under Secretary of Transportation Everitt Hutchinson, Dean Fred J. Benson and State Highway Engineer Dewitt C. Greer look at a model used to study various types of grade crossing situations.

Top Right and Bottom: Early economic and freight studies at TTI focused on estimating future needs of the trucking, rail, water and airline industries; improving safety at rail grade crossings; and developing the Interstate Highway System.

Mobility

 

Top Left: Charles Blumentritt (seated) discusses traffic programming using a then-state-of-the-art IBM 7094 computer. Standing left to right are Charles J. Keese, Charles Pinnell and Joe Wright.

Right: TTI researchers began their quest for better freeway operations in 1961 through work on Houston’s Gulf Freeway. This project was one of the first in the country to use time-lapse and aerial photography to develop mathematical models for use with new technologies and techniques such as ramp meters and computer-driven traffic surveillance and control centers.

TTI’s Former Directors

 

Left to Right: Fred Benson, Director, 1955-1962; Jack Keese, Director, 1962-1976; Charley Wootan, Director, 1976-1993; and Herb Richardson, Director, 1993-2006.

This Issue

Solving the Transportation Puzzle

Volume 46, Number 3
September 2010
Issue Overview