Design and Testing of an Easy to Use Pinned-down Temporary Concrete Barrier with Limited Deflections

In work zones where the space available for placing a temporary concrete barrier is very limited, for example bridge replacement projects, the barrier must be strictly restrained to prevent lateral deflection due to vehicular impact. Among the few restraining or anchoring mechanisms currently available, most designs require through the deck bolting, anchor bolts, or other constraining straps. Such mechanisms are difficult to install, inspect, and remove and can result in damage to thin bridge decks. In this research, a new restrained F-shaped temporary concrete barrier was developed that is easy to install, inspect, and remove, and minimizes damage to the bridge deck or concrete pavements. The mechanism uses a pinned-down approach to restrain the barrier. Steel pins are simply dropped into inclined holes that start from the toe of the barrier and continue short distance into the bridge deck or concrete pavement. The pinned down anchorage design was developed through extensive use finite element analysis. The performance of the final design was evaluated by conducting a full-scale vehicle impact crash test. The pinned down barrier successfully passed the National Cooperative Research Program Report 350 Test Level 3 requirements. The maximum permanent and dynamic barrier deflections were 5.76 inches (146.3 mm) and 11.52 inches (292.6 mm), respectively.