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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 1997)
NU-designed guardrail ready for highway use Crash tests demonstrate roadside device could save lives CRASH from page 1 which turns down on the ends into the roadside, Pfeifer said. This terminal was created in the 1960s for heavy, old-model cars, he said. Today’s lighter cars, such as the Ford Festiva, could flip end-over end in a 62-mph accident. Any roll over accident increases the risk of injury or death to passengers, he said. But Dean Sicking, BEST prin ciple investigator and assistant pro fessor of mechanical engineering, said the new end terminals were put in place to save lives, not*wreck them. “You spend money to put in a safety device to protect motorists, and then the safety device kills them,” Sicking said. “This is the worst thing that could happen. “And with guardrail terminals this has happened way too much.” So Sicking went' to work on the BEST’S newest version, which is now ready for the market and ready to save lives, he said. The terminal is one of three brands approved by the U.S. Depart ment of Transportation’s new 1998 safety standards. All new guardrail end pieces put in place after that time will be either BEST or two other products. BEST has been priced much lower than the competition, so sales could soon skyrocket, he said. Don Helmuth, associate vice chan cellor for research at UNL, said BEST could bring a potential $1 million per year in royalty income to the univer sity. Interstate Steel in Big Spring, Texas, will manufacture the termi nals, which will retail for about $1,200 to $1,500, Helmuth said. The university will get a percentage of profits, he said. There are about 700,000 of the turn-down terminals that will need to be replaced, Helmuth said. BEST’S low cost will make it a prime choice, he said. Pfeifer said if all turn-down termi nals were replaced with BEST, about 40 lives could be saved in Texas alone in one year. A Texas study done from 1991 94 found current terminals caused 45 deaths each year, he said. No mqre than four or five should have occurred if BEST were in place, Pfeifer said. In spite of its proven life-saving ability, the full market potential of 6EST is unknown because states will Wee different choices to replace drail terminals after 1998, Pfeifer said. But Sicking said BEST was en sured success on the market. The costs of other terminals that met 1998 safety standards were artifi cially inflated, he said. Sicking said he believed safety shdi!ld be affordable. By bringing BEST to the market, prices could fall by 30 or 40 percent, he said. And if the low cost of BEST results in higher usage, all travelers should benefit. “If they’re used three times as much as they were in the past, we’ll save three times as many people’s lives,” Sicking said. Saving lives and preventing inju ries is the No. 1 goal of the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, he said. The facility employs faculty, staff and graduate students in research on high way design and safety. Pfeifer said students could become part of the center’s innovative research and even work with crash-testing. - 'And just maybe, he said, they could help save a few lives. -'-.'iV’ ir t . f ""■ The Beam Eating Steel Terminal (BEST) guardrail —— was designed by a team of engineers at the University of Nebraska. Its design was tested to protect vehicles from rolling over guardrails, and from suffering severe front-end damage, which could push the engine into the front passenger area. Ideally, the guardrail should make it possible for a passenger to walk away from a 62 mph impact. Illustrations to the right show how the rail operates upon impact. Clhe breakaway posts are pushed As the vehicle pushes the away from the terminal head, razors slice the vehicle upon steel guardrail into strips, which impact, curl away from the vehicle and prevent it from rolling (^Breakaway wooden posts will be pushed away from the car dunng impact, thus preventing them from pushing the at engine into the ail vehicle's 5 passenger area. ie le. ,4 .1