Design Issues in the Anchorage of Safety Barriers Installed on Bridge Curbs

Safety barriers are generally installed using post-installed systems (typically adhesive anchors), due to their flexibility and ease of installation. However, particularly for barriers installed at the edge of bridge decks, the geometry of the curb does not always make verification straightforward for the designer. Indeed, the checks prescribed by Eurocode 2 Part 4 are often overly conservative regarding concrete failure modes (such as cone failure and splitting), even though full-scale tests typically do not reveal any critical issues. The definition of applied loads and their distribution, the stiffness of the system, and the dynamic effects due to impact are likely the main reasons behind this discrepancy between laboratory tests and analytical verifications. This paper critically analyses the influence of these parameters on the resistance of the connection, including a comparative overview of the approaches adopted by different design codes for the definition and application of impact loads.