Study on the anti-collision performance of basalt fiber reinforced polymer beam–column guardrail

Abstract In view of poor performance and short service life of conventional bridge guardrails against vehicle collision in practice, a continuous basalt fiber reinforced polymer (BFRP) guardrail was proposed. The quasi-static bending test of BFRP pipe was carried out and simulated by nonlinear explicit dynamics software LS-DYNA, and then the new guardrail was evaluated using LS-DYNA. Results revealed that the vehicles do not appear to cross, ride across, and pass through the guardrails, implying that the BFRP guardrail has a good guiding performance. The vertical and horizontal acceleration values at the seat position during the collision are all less than 200 m/s 2 in the specification, indicating that the BFRP guardrail has a good cushioning function for the vehicle. Compared with the steel guardrails, the BFRP guardrail can better reduce the acceleration of the vehicle, and the energy absorption of the BFRP guardrail is higher than that of the steel guardrail. Therefore, the anti-collision performance of the BFRP guardrail is better than that of the steel guardrail.