Concrete median barriers are designed to mitigate serious cross-median crashes by preventing penetration of errant vehicles into oncoming traffic. When implemented in flood-prone areas, however, solid concrete median barriers can act as a dam to floodwaters, as recently seen in the U.S. in Texas during Hurricane Harvey, or in Louisiana and Pennsylvania following severe storms. This raises the height of the floodwaters and increases the severity of flooding on highways and surrounding roads and communities. To reduce flooding, new median barrier options with openings were investigated. Finite element simulations were used to aid investigation and evaluation of the designs, and laboratory testing was performed to evaluate the hydraulic efficiency of barrier designs in a variety of simulated flood conditions. A concrete single-slope profile median barrier with a large scupper was selected for crash testing following Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) Test Level 4 (TL-4) impact conditions and evaluation criteria. The median barrier design was deemed MASH compliant and is ready for implementation in areas susceptible to flooding, with the goal of reducing flooding severity, decreasing associated risk to motorists, and reducing the level of flood damage to both highways and surrounding areas.

混凝土隔离带旨在通过防止错误车辆进入迎面而来的车辆来减轻严重的跨隔离带碰撞事故。然而，当在洪水易发地区实施时，坚固的混凝土中间屏障可以充当洪水的大坝，正如最近在美国德克萨斯州哈维飓风期间或路易斯安那州和宾夕法尼亚州遭受严重风暴后所见。这提高了洪水的高度，并增加了高速公路和周围道路和社区洪水的严重程度。为了减少洪水，研究了新的带开口的中间屏障选项。有限元模拟用于辅助设计的调查和评估，并进行实验室测试以评估各种模拟洪水条件下屏障设计的水力效率。评估安全硬件(MASH) 测试级别 4 (TL-4) 影响条件和评估标准的手册。中间屏障设计被认为符合 MASH 标准，并准备在易受洪水侵袭的地区实施，目的是降低洪水的严重程度，降低对驾车者的相关风险，并降低对高速公路和周边地区的洪水破坏程度。