Research on a Novel Arresting System for Escape Ramps: Design and Experiment

Abstract

Runaway accidents caused by vehicle braking have been extensively studied from the perspective of passenger safety. The traditional escape ramp alleviates such conditions to some extent, which places higher demands on human protection and more complex application scenarios (slope and long-distance site requirements). This paper proposes a new type of escape ramp arresting system (ERAS) and developed a novel type of variable cable force damper. The combination of the damper and the arresting net in the ERAS could more effectively restrict the speed of the runaway vehicle and ensure the safety of the occupants, while being able to adapt to more practical scenarios (flat slopes and short-distance site requirements). Six sets of real low- and high-speed intercept tests with different models were conducted to obtain some key data, such as the acceleration of the vehicle’s center of gravity, the impact velocity of occupants, and the sequence diagram of the vehicle during the impact. The vehicle impact force at low speed and the crash safety performance were effectively evaluated. The results indicated ERAS was applicable to runaway vehicles including sedans and large buses (60–120 km/h), but further optimization was needed for overweight trucks. In addition, the paper provides valuable experimental data for the future study of real vehicle crash tests and the calibration of the finite-element model.