Abstract:To enhance the construction efficiency and connection reliability of prefabricated concrete guardrails for bridges, based on the Guilin Outer Ring Expressway Project, a guardrail connection scheme is proposed, which combines a staggered U-shaped steel bar lap-spliced vertical connection with a longitudinal shear hinge. The design principles of the staggered steel bar lap-spliced connection and the longitudinal shear hinge are introduced, and their load-bearing capacities are verified. A guardrail-vehicle coupled finite element model is established using LS-DYNA, and crash simulations are performed for a large bus, a large truck and a small passenger car. The results indicate that the transverse load-bearing capacities at both the end and middle sections of the guardrail meet the highest design protection level for bridge guardrails specified in the Highway Guardrail Safety Performance Evaluation Standards (JTG B05-01 - 2013). Furthermore, the transverse dynamic deflection of the guardrail, the vehicle rollover equivalent value, and the occupant acceleration under collisions with the three vehicle types also satisfy the corresponding requirements. Compared with existing guardrail connection methods, the comprehensive unit price of the proposed scheme is 12.8% lower than that of the cast-in-place scheme, which has obvious advantages in installation tolerance, construction speed and comprehensive cost.