The Passively Safe Cabinet is a safe road structure that is designed to shear off upon impact reducing the injury caused to a vehicle’s occupants. It is the first roadside cabinet of its kind designed to be passively safe.
Developed and designed by the team at Ritherdon using the expertise in the design and manufacture of light-weight, stainless steel enclosures to add an extra layer of safety to the roadside cabinet. The design and testing of the cabinet follow the requirements of BS EN12767 which details the passive safety requirements of support structures for road equipment and the requirements, classification and test methods.
Testing
The PSC was crash tested at 35 and 100kph with an extra 26 kg to simulate a cabinet full of equipment. The design is made to shear off and can be fitted with a PEIS Premier Electrical Isolation System, along with PolePlugs pull-apart plugs and sockets and multicore cables.
Results
The PSC passed both impact tests with an Occupant Safety Level of 100NE3. The PolePlugs and PEIS successfully isolated the power supplies to the cabinets and their plinths on impact.
Insight into Designing the Crash Tests
Ritherdon worked alongside Manchester University’s School of MACE to model the impact of a car on the cabinet before carrying out the physical crash tests. The use of Finite Element Analysis allowed us to optimise the design of the shearing mechanism of the cabinet. The simulation allowed us to confidently perform in-house impact tests safely and assured us of the performance of the cabinet prototypes before carrying out the final EN12767 impact tests performed at TRL. Find more information on the presentation done for the Roadside Safety Group Committee AFP20 Group hosted by European Union Road Federation.
If you are thinking of including the Passively Safe Cabinet in your next design, get in touch. We’ll be happy to answer your questions on the best solution for your cabinet.
