The Midwest Roadside Safety Facility at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has been mobilized to answer the safety and military defense questions raised by the growing number of electric vehicles on the nation's roads.
In research funded by the U.S. Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC), the Nebraska facility recently conducted a first-of-its-kind crash test of an EV truck to better understand whether U.S. military guardrails and protective measures are currently in use against enemy vehicles prepare for the increasing number of EVs.
Thousands of deaths result each year from more than 100,000 off-road accidents involving traffic infrastructure such as barriers.
“There is some urgency to address this issue,” said Cody Stolle, assistant director of the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility. “As the percentage of electric vehicles on the road increases, the percentage of off-road accidents involving electric vehicles will also increase.”
A crash test performed on a guardrail on October 12, 2023, highlighted the concern. At 60 mph, the 7,000-pound Rivian R1T 2022 truck crossed the barrier with little reduction in speed. In a separate test conducted in September, a 2018 Tesla Model 3 sedan lifted the guardrail and drove under it, coming to rest behind the barrier.
Additional crash tests are planned. Then, transportation officials, defense experts and Midwest Roadside Safety Facility researchers will work together to determine next steps to address anticipated changes in America's vehicle fleet. Auburn University's Transportation Research Institute, where former Husker transportation researcher Larry Rilett is now director, is also a partner in the research effort.
“The mission of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is to deliver vital engineering solutions, in collaboration with our partners, to secure our nation, energize our economy, and reduce disaster risk,” said Genevieve Pezzola, research scientist engineer at the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center.
“It is critical that we conduct these baseline EV comparison tests to understand any potential risks to our nation,” he said. “This project is a necessary first step toward ensuring that our nation's protective measures, such as roadside barrier systems and barriers to protect against hostile vehicles, are being adapted to accommodate the changing composition of the vehicle fleet.”
The guardrail system tested features a 12-gauge corrugated steel guardrail mounted on 6-inch-deep steel posts anchored to the rail with 8- to 12-inch-thick blocks. The top of the rail is 31 inches above the road.
Designed as an inexpensive, high-performance barrier, the proven guardrail system, the Midwest Guardrail System, or MGS, was developed at the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility in response to barrier breaks and rollovers with older systems. The MGS has been tested with small cars weighing up to 2,400 pounds and pickups weighing 5,000 pounds. Until now, little was known about how the system would perform in crashes involving EVs, which typically weigh 20 percent to 50 percent more than gas-powered vehicles with lower centers of gravity.
Research by the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility shows that EVs are involved in off-road crashes at about the same rate and about the same speeds as gasoline-powered vehicles. This would mean that an EV hitting a barrier could have 20% to 50% more impact energy.
“It will be necessary to rethink roadblock designs even beyond EVs,” he said. “It is a critical and urgent need.”
UNL has led many efforts to create next-generation barriers. In addition to MGS, the Husker research team, led by former director Dean Sicking and current director Ron Faller, also developed the Steel and Foam Energy-Reducing, or SAFER, barrier, improving the safety of the race car track and saving the lives of race drivers. The SAFER barrier was even placed at the Rose Bowl during an exhibition game event.
Today's challenge is to readjust roadblocks to match the mix of heavier electric vehicles, lighter gas-powered vehicles, taller SUVs and pickups, and smaller cars. Meeting the challenge requires collaboration with diverse backgrounds in defense, transportation, planning and conflict security.
“We can learn a lot from evaluating EV response in well-defined barrier systems,” Pezzola said. “Through computational modeling and additional testing, we can understand the military and defense implications, with an emphasis on mitigation and control of enemy vehicles. The primary objective of this work is to ensure the safety of the public and enhance the protection of the nation's infrastructure.”
UNL's research will contribute to the vision of the US Engineering Research and Development Center through testing, simulation and design. Industry collaborations, including Caresoft Global, which gave Husker researchers access to a critical database of current vehicles, including EVs, and Ansys' LS-DYNA program used with UNL's supercomputer system, will start work on the next generation of road safety systems.
“We need to know as much as we can now because it takes time to design new systems, evaluate them and confirm these results with full-scale crash tests,” Stolle said. “Then state transportation agencies across the country can begin the process of upgrading the barriers to new, more robust versions.
“We will use our collective century of experience in road safety planning to make these changes quickly and save lives.”
