Design of a hybrid composite anti-ram bollard against impact

Abstract

Anti-ram bollards provide critical perimeter protection for buildings and infrastructures against threats such as vehicle borne improvised explosive devices and impact. There is continuous demand to deliver similar or better performance using cheaper or lighter composite materials. Several designs of composite bollards comprising of a steel hollow tube, an aluminum alloy hollow tube and crushable foam core are compared against a standard bollard, a thick cylindrical steel structure. The current design approach is based on crash-test certification, leading to an overly conservative design. In this work, numerical simulations are utilized which incorporate the rate-dependent effects of the mat..