By: Bill Wilson
When the cover came off at Traffic Expo, the phrase “totally tubular” was released back into the atmosphere. Energy Absorption Systems Inc., Chicago, unveiled what will probably be the most talked about work-zone safety innovation in years at the American Traffic Safety Services Association’s (ATSSA) annual meeting in New Orleans in February. And, yes, it is all about the tubes.
The Vorteq Trailer-Truck Mounted Attenuator (TMA)
(Circle 910) is a steel skeleton of its predecessor—Energy Absorption’s Safe-Stop TMA—but the engineering involved simply suffocates impacts.
“It’s not really a skeleton,” Kent Kekeis, marketing manager of Energy Absorption’s TMA product line, told Roads & Bridges. “It is the lightest trailer that is on the market, and it meets the NCHRP 350 TL-3, and all tests were done with an incident weight. It has the look of something that is light and skeletal, but it definitely has the technology behind it that it is going to meet all of those testing requirements and more.”
The Safe-Stop TMA is quite stout in comparison. The older TMA generates its cushion force from a collapsible frame and replaceable cartridges. The new Vorteq TMA integrates the energy-absorbing elements in the chassis, making the cartridges obsolete. On impact, frame-rail tubes are pushed through a curling mechanism on the back end of the TMA.
“As that impact head comes forward it creates that curling vortex type of look,” said Kekeis. “If you look at it from the top it is constantly curling in. So it is like a double vortex there.”
The curling mechanism also helps keep shattered debris, which is a common symptom of impacted TMAs, to a minimum.
“The Vorteq unit is designed to minimize the TMA debris scatter by curling the energy-absorbing frame rails inwardly,” Kekeis said. “The inward spiraling of the tubes creates a contained and compact system that is safer, easier and quicker to clean up and remove after impact.
“Furthermore, the wheels and axle are designed to stay connected and functional after design impacts, thus allowing the damaged unit to be driven away by the host vehicle without additional equipment or special tow vehicles.”
Speed was the mindset of this product from the very beginning. Kekeis said the Vorteq took just a year to create, and nine months of that was spent conducting impact tests.
“Once we locked in on the design that worked, all four tests that we passed were done right after each other,” he said. “There was no redesign or tweaking of the system. We designed for the same system, and boom, boom, boom, hit those to meet all four requirements.”
The biggest challenge for the Energy Absorption team was to understand the tube dynamics and how to best assure the tubes curled in a repeatable and predictable manner.
“Those tubes actually have a tube within a tube for added stability. As we went through the design process those are the types of things that came out to be important steps,” said Kekeis.
As for the reaction on the Traffic Expo show floor, Kekeis reported that it was a positive mix.
“It was first, ‘Wow, that thing really looks cool.’ Then it was, ‘How does that thing work’ and then it went to, ‘Wow, this really does make a lot of sense.’”
The Vorteq TMA should be in production this month.
Safety firsts
New products weighed down the show floor at Traffic Expo. The following highlighted ATSSA’s New Products Press Conference.
In the O zone
Filtrona Extrusion’s O-Frame Barrier Leg (Circle 911) is an all-plastic A-Frame, ADA-compliant barricade leg that offers a customizable insert. The O-Frame board locking tabs secure all styles of barricade panels.
WiFi access
The Mirolux Ultra (Circle 912) is a new 30-meter retroreflectometer with a built-in GPS printer and WiFi capability.
Chamber-made
The Auto Fusion Air Purge Airless Impingement Spray Gun with Extended-Wear Mix Chamber (Circle 913) from EnDiSys is a durable and easy-to-use applicator. The Extended-Wear Mix Chamber is engineered to meet ratio and flow requirements and are sized to specific ratios and flow rates. The spray gun can be used for line striping, spray foams, polyurea coating and pipe coatings and lining. An optional heated manifold maintains consistent viscosity at the mix head.
To the left
Advanced Striping Equipment Inc. showed off what it called the “first-ever production-line-built, left-handed handliner at no additional cost” at Traffic Expo. The updated Thermo Mark II (Circle 914) allows the operator to have visual awareness of oncoming traffic while striping the centerline; allows for striping with the flow of traffic; and allows the operator to stay in the protected work zone.
Other features are a rear-swivel wheel, a single-lever bead width adjustment, adjustable dual front brakes and an insulated material reservoir.
Sharper sheeting
Reflexite Americas introduced a fluorescent-orange, high-performance, pre-stripe barricade sheeting (Circle 915), which is designed to be integrated into fully compliant NCHRP 350 crash-tested barricade systems.
The barricade sheeting is designed to be more lightweight, space-saving and durable compared to conventional pre-stripe materials.
Cover better
Construction Zone Sign Covers created a two-piece, spring-loaded corrugated plastic sign cover (Circle 916) designed to help signaling and traffic-control companies effectively cover speed limit and directional signs in roadway construction projects.
First line
The ConeZONE Design Module (Circle 917) from SignCAD is a new addition to the ConeZONE suite of products.
The Design Module is CAD software that automates the layout of work zones. The user selects the type of layout and identifies the road centerline by drawing a line and locating the work area.
ConeZONE takes it from there. It places all devices required by the layout accurately and automatically along the roadway using scaled aerial photographs or roadway plan sheets as base maps and using the built-in standards of the MUTCD for work-zone layout as the design engine. Users may add or modify the placement of devices to accommodate special circumstances.
The X factor
According to Barrier Systems, the X-Tension (Circle 918) is the world’s first fully redirective, non-gating guardrail end terminal. The technology features median, flared and tangent end terminals that can be assembled from the same hardware kit. The fully redirective capability offers a length of need starting at post one rather than post three.
During head-on impacts, X-Tension is energy-absorbing with resistance at the impact head rather than being transferred down the rail.
As the impact head is pushed down the W-beam sections and two cables, the cables are pulled through a cable-friction plate in a twisting path, which dissipates the energy.
Grab a five-pack
The SynchroGUIDE Pro B Lite Synchro (Circle 919) has taken the construction zone SynchroGUIDE wireless technology and compacted it into a rechargeable five-pack lamp kit ready for rapid deployment from the trunk of an emergency vehicle.
