Simulation analysis of an improved design for temporary crash barrier using plastic recycle material

Abstract

Plastic temporary barrier acts as a road safety device for protecting or minimizing the risk of workers exposed to traffic flows as well as minimizing the risk of injury to vehicle occupants in the event of collision. Plastic temporary barrier is one of road safety device application which capable of absorbing the impact energy during collision with errant vehicles, thus minimize the severity of injury upon impact. Currently, all plastic temporary barriers were developed using Virgin High Density Polyethylene (V-HDPE) material. Currently, most of production defect and destruction temporary barrier will be scrapping which mean contributes into plastic waste. Therefore, releasing on this situation, by implementing plastic recycle material as alternative to control the plastic waste. Comprehending on this situation; the study was conducted to identify the potential of using Recycled High Density Polyethylene (R-HDPE) for road safety barrier application through make an improvement design based on selected temporary barrier which have better energy absorption and complies with road safety regulation. In order to analyze the energy absorption capability of the recycled plastic, a finite element method using Abaqus/Explicit was used to simulate a car impacting a series of assembled temporary barrier at 90° and 20 °degrees angle following the Test Level 0 (TL-0) of standard impact test regulation. Three types of conceptual designs of the temporary barrier were proposed to improve the current barrier design. The capabilities of all the barrier designs in terms of their internal energy, kinetic energy, total energy, stress and displacement were analyzed. The tests were conducted using both plastic material properties of primary recycle R-HDPE and V-HDPE from. The output results of both materials were compared to distinguish whether R-HDPE can provide acceptable absorption capability as compared to V-HDPE. Overall results showed a similar pattern of R-HDPE and V- HDPE materials in terms of energy absorption regardless of any types of barrier design. However, Conceptual Design 2 (CD2) based on R-HDPE material that includes external ribs along the outer structure of the barrier provides better energy absorption compared to the other two of barrier designs. These show that the improvement design provide an influence to the ability of R-HDPE as temporary barrier. In conclusion, analysis of the simulated results on the primary recycled RHDPE temporary barrier showed a good potential of how this material can be an alternative as a road safety device material. With the use of such recycled materials, the amount of plastic waste can be controlled as well as supporting sustainable manufacturing environment.