Determination of the actual value of horizontal transverse load from vehicle impact on a concrete parapet road barrier

Introduction. In bridge and overpass design, the transverse (lateral) load from a vehicle impact on the safety barrier must be accounted for. In the Russian Federation, p. 6.19 of CP 35.13330.2011 specifies a constant value of 165.2 kN for concrete barriers — a value originating from SNiP 2.05.03–84 (1986) and not revised since. A review of U.S. and EU provisions shows that comparable design loads are approximately 3–5 times higher, motivating the present study.

Materials and methods. A vehicle–barrier impact is a dynamically nonlinear contact problem between two deformable bodies. The most effective approach is virtual crash testing. We employed ANSYS LS-DYNA; test parameters (vehicle mass, speed, impact angle) were set per current Russian standards. Model validation used full-scale test data from NAMI. Solution verification included energy balance checks, mesh/time-step convergence, and comparison of impact force metrics with analytical estimates discussed in the paper.

Results. Virtual simulations yielded numerical values of the equivalent transverse dynamic load from vehicle impact on a concrete barrier for retention levels Y1–Y10 in accordance with GOST 33128–2024 and GOST 33129–2024.

Conclusion. The actual impact loads substantially exceed the value prescribed by p. 6.19 of SP 35.13330.2011, leading to insufficient safety margins in current barrier and connection designs on bridges. The findings indicate the need to update the Russian regulatory framework for concrete barriers and for the structures on which they are installed, linking design loads to retention level and impact scenario and allowing the use of verified virtual crash testing results.

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