How Road Barriers Stopped Killing Drivers

moonsammysays...

It was quick, but I'm pretty sure 11:56 answers a question I'd had for years, but never actually bothered to look up. Every so often I'd see a parked highway dept vehicle with a big, fairly flat object lowered to a horizontal position behind it. Barrier makes *way* more sense than any of the hypotheses I'd imagined.

newtboysays...

The technical term is a rear crash attenuator.
I worked for a friend with a patent on foam cured carbon fiber manufacturing, using the heat and pressure of an expanding foam core to cure the carbon fiber without vacuum bagging or autoclaving....I helped with designing, and personally designed and built the molds, and built a number of test attenuators meant to replace the huge yellow plastic boxes on cal trans trucks. Basically an approximately 3x4x6' carbon fiber box with a dense foam core containing multiple tuned air chambers. We had to tune the chambers to stop vehicles at 60 mph without exceeding certain g forces. In the end, he lost the contract, but not because the device didn't work, I think it was too expensive, and my friend was not a great businessman. Ours was far lighter than the plastic versions, and was meant to pay for itself in fuel savings hauling it around.

moonsammysaid:

It was quick, but I'm pretty sure 11:56 answers a question I'd had for years, but never actually bothered to look up. Every so often I'd see a parked highway dept vehicle with a big, fairly flat object lowered to a horizontal position behind it. Barrier makes *way* more sense than any of the hypotheses I'd imagined.

spawnflaggerjokingly says...

I just had an idea - instead of storing crashed cars in junkyards, use them as highway dividers. They are already tested for head-on collisions, and when someone crashes into it, can just leave the freshly-crashed car there as more filler (drain the fluids).

luxintenebrissays...

in Saudi they leave wreaks on the side of the road. or use to.

joking, yes...but just seeing a junkyard along particular bad stretches of the road might 'brighten' drivers? nothing like the feathers of death's wings stroking the forehead to induce serious contemplation.

spawnflaggersaid:

I just had an idea - instead of storing crashed cars in junkyards, use them as highway dividers. They are already tested for head-on collisions, and when someone crashes into it, can just leave the freshly-crashed car there as more filler (drain the fluids).

moonsammysays...

Interesting - thanks for sharing! Shame it didn't work out better, and I have to wonder if the outcome would be different now with the increased focus on fuel economy / climate change mitigation.

newtboysaid:

The technical term is a rear crash attenuator.
I worked for a friend with a patent on foam cured carbon fiber manufacturing, using the heat and pressure of an expanding foam core to cure the carbon fiber without vacuum bagging or autoclaving....I helped with designing, and personally designed and built the molds, and built a number of test attenuators meant to replace the huge yellow plastic boxes on cal trans trucks. Basically an approximately 3x4x6' carbon fiber box with a dense foam core containing multiple tuned air chambers. We had to tune the chambers to stop vehicles at 60 mph without exceeding certain g forces. In the end, he lost the contract, but not because the device didn't work, I think it was too expensive, and my friend was not a great businessman. Ours was far lighter than the plastic versions, and was meant to pay for itself in fuel savings hauling it around.

newtboysays...

Not if the same people were running the company, but it folded because they were swindling investors to pay themselves and never completing projects. When the attenuator job stalled, I think because he didn't pay for the crash testing so never got certified results, he just moved on to the next project instead of fixing the issues, and did the same thing. Not good.

moonsammysaid:

Interesting - thanks for sharing! Shame it didn't work out better, and I have to wonder if the outcome would be different now with the increased focus on fuel economy / climate change mitigation.

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