Bridges

At the 6th Austroads Bridge Conference held in Perth in 2006 a work-shop was convened on bridge barriers. A recommendation from the workshop was to develop a set of guidelines for bridge barrier design. This recommendation was strongly endorsed by the audience of more than 100 participants including repre-sentatives from government, consultants and contractors. The Austroads Bridge Technology Review Panel developed and submitted a project proposal to develop a set of national guidelines related to bridge barriers which would provide better consistency in design, selection, installation and maintenance of bridge barriers. Austroads has approved and funded the project which is expected to address the above and assist bridge designers, contractors and asset owners. The project com-menced in July 2010 and is expected to take 3 years. The project is part of the Austroads Technology Program and is being Project Managed by Austroads Bridge Technology Review Panel member Nigel Powers from VicRoads and the work is being conducted by ARRB. This paper provides an update on the pro-gress of the project, provides an insight into how bridge barriers are designed within the industry including Austroads members and major consultants, proposes amendments to AS 5100 based on findings to date and seeks feedback from industry.