Probably it would cause an accident with not determinate results for passenger and other vial´s users, due to the highest containment level installed on EU-roads is currently designed to vehicles up to 38tn at 65Kph and they are mostly made of conventional steel (Mild Steel).
The latest tests performed by HIPEBA project for very high containment level systems made of HPS (High Performance Steels), articulated Heavy Good Vehicles overweight at higher speed (It involves higher impact energy), open the door to the massive usage of HPS in road safety barriers to increase the containment levels in safety barriers.
HIPEBA, High Performance Steel for Safer and more Competitive Barriers, is a project funded by the European Union’s Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS). Its main objective is achieveing more competitive road restraint systems performed by HPS in terms of both industrial costs and societal benefits.
Although the project is still ongoing, the results show some of the potential advantages of using the HPS in this kind of barriers. The tests involved not only Heavy Good Vehicles but also light passenger cars (up to 900 Kg.). This is because the system must contain the biggest vehicles in a safe way and in case of impact with light vehicles must not be too severe for the passengers.
Therefore, it was shown that thanks to the use of the HPS, the limited deformation level of the barriers, the lack of potentially hazardous projectiles and fragments and the successful truck redirection without rolling over or hitting dangerous obstacles confirms the excellent absorption capabilities of the HIPEBA road safety barriers. Nevertheless, the tests showed that there are still possibilities to get an optimized system in terms of weight reduction. Therefore, the next steps will be devoted to this system optimization.
The Spanish public television La1, the private Spanish channel Cuatro and El Norte de Castilla local newspaper have covered a real scale demonstration of safety barriers crash test resulting from the latest findings of the HIPEBA Consortium research. The test, carried out at the CIDAUT Foundation facilities, shows a 44 tones truck impacting the road safety barriers at a speed of 70 km/h.
The HIPEBA Consortium will keep striving to achieve its objective in developing safer and more competitive road restraint systems by using high-performance steels.
VIDEOS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tTSMgwPK6g (Telediario de la 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPnvRqjb2MA (Noticias Cuatro)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC4oAHtN3Ls (Norte de Castilla)