The current standards regarding roadside safety barriers in the Netherlands are assembled in 1988 and therefore cover quite recent developments. The Dutch standards are mostly geometrical in nature and define devices that have been proven successful in practice. The testing conditions that have been employed in the conception of these standards are less explicit and probably need revision. The standardization of impact conditions and resulting vehicle behaviour, combined with more explicit standards for occupant protection, seems to be the only way to ensure an international "minimum of protection" for the road user. This approach also permits the use of computer simulation techniques like VEDYAC (vehicle dynamics and crash dynamics) to aid in the standardization process, thus providing access to a much larger set of initial conditions, improved comparability and a significant reduction of costs. Vedyac is a powerful computer model for the simulation and design of many kinds of movable and interacting (colliding) structures. It has primarily been used in design and improvement of roadside safety equipment as a cheap and reliable substitute for full scale testing. Some of its most prominent features, applications and limitations will be reviewed after which the possibilities and conditions for the use of this model in homologation will be discussed.
Abstract