Reinforced Concrete Barrier Modeling In-Series Impacts in LS-DYNA

The design of longitudinal barriers using reinforced concrete is typical in roadside safety design. Roadside safety hardware such as bridge rails, median barriers, and transitions are designed to safely contain and redirect impacting vehicles without imposing any significant risks to the occupants. As full-scale crash tests of new designs are expensive and time-consuming, finite element modeling and simulation of the impact event is often involved. In LS-DYNA, one of the most popular software in roadside design, there are multiple material models for concrete modeling and there is no specific guideline on the selection of the concrete material model. This paper evaluates the behavior of material models MAT_CSCM_CONCRETE and MAT_RHT during the study of truck platoon implications. The concrete erosion, deflection, and failure mechanism of two consecutive tractor-van trailer impacts into the barrier FEA models were analyzed to select a representative material model for further study.