An energy absorbing corrugated metal highway buffer. Paper prepared for the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Highway Research Board HRB, Washington, D.C., January 1973.

A new concept in energy absorbing highway buffers was developed and tested with scale models. The buffer is made of corrugated metal elements which deform plastically upon impact thereby absorbing the energy of the impacting vehicle. Scale modeling was found to be a valuable tool as the test were conducted for a small fraction of the cost and time of full scale tests. Additional scale model tests as well as full scale tests will need to be conducted in order to finalize the buffer design.