HammerBeam™ Bridge & Culvert Barrier

HammerBeam^™ combines the strength of thrie-beam guardrail with the yielding behaviour of the RamShield^® W-Beam post. The RamShield^® post collapses upon impact distinguishing it from heavier, rigid post systems which often cause damage to the bridge or culvert structure when impacted.

HammerBeam^™ has been fully crash tested and evaluated according to the specifications for Test Level 3 (TL3) of the AASHTO Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH).

Crash testing was performed with and without a 200mm high hob installed along the edge of the elevated concrete beam representing real-life scenarios and assessing the potential for vehicle vaulting during containment and redirection.

The MASH specification is an update to and supersedes NCHRP Report 350 for the purposes of evaluating new safety hardware devices. MASH presents uniform guidelines for crash testing permanent and temporary highway safety features and recommends evaluation criteria to assess test results. MASH considers real-life crash data, changes to the vehicle fleet and in-service performance in developing evaluation criteria.

HammerBeam^™ may be installed with side-mount posts maximising usable bridge and culvert width or with posts on baseplates at sites where access to the side of the structure may be restrictive.

The side mount option features a bracket containing a recess for insertion of the RamShield^® post. Once the bracket is secured to the side of the structure, the standard length RamShield^® post is cut to the required length on site and inserted into the recess. This design feature provides numerous benefits including the use of standard components and allows damaged posts to be easily replaced.

The side mount brackets and HammerBeam^™ posts on baseplates are secured with four (4) M20 x 187mm Fischer mechanical anchors. Crash testing demonstrated no damage to the anchors or concrete structure following the vehicle impacts.

The standard post spacing of HammerBeam^™ is 2m centres.

HammerBeam^™ features thrie-beam guardrail. The use of an asymmetric transition facilitates connection to RamShield® W-Beam or MSKT end terminals.