Performances Evaluation of Longitudinal Barriers-First Experimental Data with Light Vehicles

This paper sets out the first results of tests carried out at the National Research Institute on Transportation and Safety in France on lateral barriers with small cars. The vehicle used is a 205 Peugeot. The traffic rails are the standard mettalic barrier and the rigid concrete barrier. We have found some differences in behavior as compared to european medium range vehicles with which the tests were conducted at this date. For the rigid barrier the vehicles very stiff behavior at impact leads to stability losses at important exit speeds. For the mettalic barriers we notice a barrier stiffer behavior due to vehicle mass differences. On the other hand we have not seen a major increase in traffic rail post collision effects.