Evaluation of W-Beam Guardrail and Terminal Posts Installed in Metal Sleeves

Abstract

Because of frozen soils in extreme winter weather, it is difficult to remove and replace soil-embedded posts of a W-beam guardrail system in the event of a vehicle crash. Additional resources and equipment are usually needed to repair the guardrail, which results in longer maintenance time or delays in carrying out the repair. This poses a safety hazard to the maintenance crew by increasing their exposure to the oncoming traffic, and to other motorists because of the presence of the maintenance crew or a non-functional guardrail. Some states install steel posts in metal sleeves for faster repairs under such conditions. However, the performance of the W-beam guardrail system and its terminals has not been evaluated with posts installed in sleeves under the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) criteria. Research presented in this paper evaluates the performance of the steel post W-beam guardrail and end terminals with posts installed in metal sleeves. A series of surrogate bogie vehicle impact tests and a full-scale crash test were performed to compare the performance of the posts installed in sleeves and the posts directly embedded in soil. Findings of this research show that steel posts may be installed in metal sleeves for the W-beam guardrail system and most end terminals.