Steel post-and-beam railings which attach directly to bridge decks are beneficial for a variety of reasons, including reduction of dead weight, unrestricted drainage, aesthetics, and rapid installation. However, because of a long-standing convention holding that the use of steel posts without curbs is likely to result in costly deck damage, steel bridge railings are used less frequently than concrete parapets and curbed steel railings. Under NCHRP Project 12-119, this convention was challenged, and an updated methodology for evaluating/designing bridge decks to support steel posts was developed. The method is compatible with both damage-mitigating and damage-permitting design philosophies. Failure of the deck slab is characterized as a trapezoidal yield-line mechanism, which can be adjusted to account for local punching shear damage below the post. To develop the methodology, in this research a physical impact test was performed on an instrumented steel post and bridge deck specimen. A calibrated LS-DYNA model was then developed and used to create a data pool consisting of simulated pushover tests of parametric variations and in-service railing models from which design guidance was extracted. General guidelines and best practices for attaching steel posts to bridge decks, which are consistent with the updated methodology, are presented in this paper alongside general recommendations for selecting appropriate post sizes for a common bridge deck designs.

The majority of bridge rails used in the U.S.A. and Canada are solid concrete parapets. However, the design procedure included in the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications (BDS) for deck overhangs supporting parapets has not been modified for nearly 50 years. The specifications currently recommend that the deck overhang moment demand is taken as the cantilever bending strength of the parapet at its base. This recommendation results in uneconomical deck designs if the parapet is overdesigned. In this research effort, which was performed under National Cooperative Highway Research Program Project 12-119, the distribution of vehicle impact loads through the parapet and overhang was characterized, new equations were proposed to calculate overhang design demands, and the effect of deck understrength on parapet capacity was quantified. To develop updated design guidance, physical testing of instrumented specimens was performed, and validated LS-DYNA models were used to evaluate a variety of in-service railing and overhang designs. Results indicated that deck moments from lateral vehicle impact loads can be reliably estimated by assuming they distribute at 45 degrees with downward travel through the parapet and at 60 degrees with inward travel through the overhang. These angles are used to calculate effective lengths at critical sections, and overhang design moments are calculated by dividing the total applied moment over these lengths. Distribution of tensile loads was found to be minimal. The overhang design guidance developed in this project, which is currently under review for adoption into the BDS, routinely results in more economical deck designs than the existing method.

Recently, a precast concrete bridge railing with unique connection details for barrier-to-deck and barrier-to-barrier interfaces was developed at the Institute of Transportation (InTrans)-Iowa State University (ISU). Successful laboratory experiments led to the current study, in which the primary objectives were to determine if the bridge railing system complied with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) Test-Level 4 (TL-4) impact safety standards through a sequence of stages, including pre-crash simulations and one full-scale crash test with a 10000S single-unit truck (SUT). Initial analyses incorporated LS-DYNA computer simulations emulating MASH TL-4 impacts on two prototype barrier configurations: a single-slope shape and a near-vertical shape. These simulations facilitated the discernment of the bridge rail length, reinforcement details, crashworthiness for passenger vehicles, selection of the single-slope shape for crash testing, and determination of a critical impact point for the 10000S SUT crash test. Subsequent modifications to the single-slope barrier system with inclined bar connections were predicated on these computational findings. A full-scale crash test assessed the bridge railing and the loading to the inclined steel anchor bars under MASH test designation no. 4-12, focusing on its impact safety performance and potential damage to the barrier and bridge deck. In test no. ABCBRM-1, the single-unit truck, was successfully contained and redirected, with the barrier and deck sustaining negligible damage, and all safety performance criteria were within acceptable limits as defined in MASH. The study findings demonstrated that the modified single-slope, precast concrete bridge rail system met the MASH TL-4 impact safety criteria.

Concrete post-and-beam bridge rails are a common bridge-rail type in the U.S. However, direct investigations of their performance on bridge-deck overhangs are rare, and current specifications do not clearly address this rail type or the design of decks supporting them. In this paper, the results of a performance case study of concrete bridge-rail posts on deck overhangs are presented. This study included (1) bogie testing of a MASH TL-4 concrete post on an instrumented deck, (2) development and calibration of a corresponding LS-DYNA model, and (3) use of the calibrated model to further describe system behavior, evaluate the effect of common design alternatives on performance, and corroborate the system performance from a full-scale crash test. The results of this study indicated that current design methods of the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications (BDS) resulted in a significant underestimation of lateral capacity, partially because their neglect of inertial resistance. In the bogie test of the concrete post, over 40% of the peak lateral resistance of the post was attributed to inertial effects. Similarly, the calibrated LS-DYNA model indicated that the full-scale system could withstand a simplified single-unit truck (SUT) loading consisting of a 150 kip pulse load while only sustaining minor damage, despite having a BDS-predicted capacity of 73 kips. Additional findings included a characterization of deck demands, performance effects of design alternatives, such as edge distance and slab thickness, and the influence of using straight versus hooked transverse deck bars.

The traditional, triangular yield-line method used by most departments of transportation for analyzing concrete traffic barriers and bridge rails has been largely unchanged since 1978. Testing of concrete barriers since this time has indicated that the triangular yield-line method is not qualitatively representative of observed damage patterns and is overconservative. Further, the conversion from NCHRP Report 350 to the crash test criteria from the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) will result in increases to lateral impact loads; therefore, overconservative analysis practices may result in many concrete barriers being unnecessarily deemed inadequate. In this research, alternative analysis methods for concrete barriers were extracted from an extensive literature review of concrete barrier investigations. These methods were applied to a sample of eight concrete barriers to demonstrate and compare their effects on capacity estimates. Alternative methods included trapezoidal yield-line mechanisms, effects of impact heights lower than the top of the barrier, punching shear evaluation, and consideration of expected material strengths. Capacity estimates of the selected barriers were increased by an average of 47 percent when alternative methods were cumulatively applied. Although the traditional method does not consider punching shear, the capacity of one of the eight barriers was controlled by punching shear rather than by yield-line flexure. With the alternative methods applied, seven of the eight barriers were deemed adequate relative to the increased lateral loads corresponding to MASH criteria for Test Levels 2 through 5. By contrast, if analyzed according to the traditional method, three of the eight barriers would have been deemed insufficient considering MASH loads.

Autonomous vehicles (AV) differ significantly from traditional passenger vehicles in both their behavior and physical characteristics. As such, the validity of the guidance provided in the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware, Second Edition (MASH 2016) is questionable in AV applications. Impact angles, speeds, and vehicle weights specified in MASH 2016 are inextricably linked to the traditional vehicles underlying the estimates. For AV applications, these parameters must be estimated from the ground up, stepping outside the guidance of MASH 2016. In this paper, a conservative method for evaluating existing infrastructure to support AV traffic is proposed. The method integrates traditional structural analyses with unconventional methods of estimating impact conditions. This methodology was developed for the Jacksonville Transportation Authority, who, when faced with unique challenges in maintaining and expanding their Automated Skyway Express, opted to convert the system from monorail to AV traffic. Leading AV developers were surveyed to develop a portfolio of potential candidates for the conversion. Estimated impact conditions were then compared against the capacity of the system's existing concrete parapets. Ultimately, safe operating speeds for each AV candidate were recommended on the bases of structural capacity and vehicle stability. All but one AV candidate were deemed capable of safely operating at the desired speed of 25 mph without any modifications to the barrier. Although the methodology was developed for a particular case, it is applicable to future implementations of AVs on existing infrastructure, provided the roadway is confined similarly to the Skyway deck.

The goal of this investigation is to assess the performance of rural structures in natural hazard events in 2018. Digital reconnaissance was implemented to retrieve data on damage-inflicting events, where collected data included a general summary of the event, the severity of damage inflicted, and the types of structures affected. To better understand the benefits and shortcomings of digital reconnaissance, findings are compared with those of traditional, field reconnaissance for two hazard events. The 2018 digital reconnaissance database is analyzed to discern regional, structural, and event-type trends and the fragility of specific rural structural systems. The investigation identified that, in 2018, damaged rural structures substantially outnumbered damaged urban structures, and the vast majority of damaging events occurred in the South and Midwest regions of the United States. Structures typical of rural areas, particularly barns, grain bins/silos, and manufactured homes, proved especially vulnerable, with many of these structures suffering complete failure in events causing only minor damage to structures more typical of urban areas. However, a comparison with field reconnaissance indicated that quantities of damaged structures are likely underestimated through digital reconnaissance, particularly in rural areas.