Impact of heavy goods vehicles with different payload on crashworthiness of safety barriers

In TRANSFORMERS, a recent co-funded EC project, different configurable and adaptable trucks and trailers were developed for optimal transport efficiency. These new vehicle configurations might have an influence on infrastructure and need to be analyzed with regards to their impact on road equipment. For traffic safety reasons the mechanical impact on different types of safety barriers have been assessed by using numerical simulations (instead of expensive crash tests). Finite-Element models of H4b safety barriers were developed. Investigations showed that the selected safety barriers are just able to contain common heavy goods vehicles with different distributions of payload. But high centers of gravity of the payload have been identified as a critical issue with regard to the risk of rollover in crashes with safety barriers. If the trend in heavier optimally laden vehicles continues, additional requirements for payload positions are highly recommended in a further amendment of Directive 2015/719/EC. Alternatively or in addition a potential amendment of EN 1317 might improve the crashworthiness of safety barriers by introducing other vehicle configurations and/or other containment levels.