In this guide, we will cover lots of queries and questions around finding, buying and installing the most effective safety guardrails and barriers for your facility.
Goto DACHU to know more.
You can read the full article or jump ahead to a relevant section:
If you’re new to the world of safety barriers and industrial protection, here are some FAQs.
A safety barrier is a reinforced fence structure that is used to protect items of value, such as people, buildings, machines and stock from unwanted damage caused by vehicles and other moving objects. Safety barriers can also be used to create designated routes and segregate different types of traffic, such as walkways for people and vehicle routes.
While barriers can differ between manufacturers, the basic components are:
Safety barriers are used across a range of industries and sectors, as well as various workplaces. They are mainly used in busy industrial facilities where site vehicles are very common, such as:
Learn more: Safety Barriers in the Workplace | Protecting Your Facility
In most cases, safety barriers are used for:
The most common use for safety barriers is to provide protection. This can be protection for any number of things, such as people, machinery, vulnerable structural spaces in a building or facility, as well as stock and goods. Safety barriers provide protection from vehicles and smaller person-operated materials handling equipment such as pallet trucks.
Another important use for safety barriers is segregation. This refers to the separation of one object or person from another. Safety barriers can be used to segregate:
As with segregation, safety barriers can be used to identify and clearly mark out specific routes and paths. This can include vehicle routes throughout a facility, safe walkways for staff and visitors as well as more specific routes such as one-way systems in busy sites.
In addition to creating pedestrian walkways, safety barriers also provide necessary support for foot traffic. Most pedestrian barriers include a handrail for additional support, allowing people to cross facilities more easily.
If you’re looking for safety barriers to aid you in traffic management, pedestrian segregation or protection, then A-SAFE are market-leading, having created the world’s first advanced polymer safety barrier. If we know anything, it’s creating barriers that make workplaces safer for everyone.
Contact Us
This section will cover the various types of safety barriers and the different levels of protection they offer. In additional you’ll also learn about the variety of barriers and the types of materials used in barrier manufacturing.
Below is a list of the various types of safety barrier:
Traffic barriers are used to segregate lanes of traffic and create clear vehicle routes. There are many different types of traffic barrier – from portable temporary barriers to fixed barriers. These can be found both within facilities and on roads.
When people refer to ‘crash barriers’ this is usually in relation to the types of guardrails and barriers that line highways and busy roads. Often made from stainless steel or another type of metal, these guardrails cover long distances and provide rigid protection against stray vehicles.
Pedestrian barriers refer to the types of barriers that usually define pedestrian routes and walkways through busy facilities and areas with increased vehicle activity. Not only do they provide protection for people walking alongside them, but they provide additional support for pedestrians usually in the form of a handrail.
There is no difference between a guardrail and a safety barrier. A safety barrier is simply a blanket term that includes the guardrails found along roadways.
There are different materials that are often used to make safety barriers. The most common types are concrete, steel and plastic.
Although concrete, steel and plastic safety barriers perform the same fundamental role, the levels and types of protection they provide can vary with each material.
Concrete barriers can be installed in specific places and are sometimes cast in place. They are secured to the floor with cement. Sometimes concrete barriers are reinforced with steel or metal to help provide more robust protection from crashes.
Safety barriers made from galvanized steel are incredibly common – especially at roadsides. These often take the form of long stretches of barrier that segregate traffic and provide protection from vehicles moving in different directions.
Plastic safety barriers are often referred to as 'polymer safety barriers' This refers to the type of material they are made from. Some polymer barriers are used as temporary protection while others are more robust and designed for long-term industrial protection. These polymer safety barriers are designed to defend against collisions and then return to their original shape so they can be used again.
If you’re looking for safety barriers that are robust, reliable and cost-effective, then A-SAFE polymer barriers can provide long-term protection with no maintenance. Speak to one of our team to find out how our safety solutions can help you.
Find out more
Now you know a little more about safety barriers and the types available, it’s useful to understand what they protect against and what can cause a barrier to fail.
Safety barriers for industrial workplaces are designed to withstand impacts from:
A safety barrier is designed to protect vulnerable objects from unwanted impacts with moving vehicles, however the amount of force a safety barrier can handle varies depending on the type of barrier.
Most manufacturers provide an impact rating with their safety barriers. This rating is a number that is measured in joules. When safety barriers are tested, this figure is reached by multiplying the velocity of a vehicle by its weight, while factoring in the angle in which it impacts the barrier. These ratings offer a guideline for the size of force a safety barrier can withstand.
If you want to learn more, please visit our website Traffic Guardrails Manufacturer .
If an object changes speed or weight, this will affect how successful a safety barrier is at deflecting an impact.
For example:
A safety barrier might be able to withstand the force of a forklift truck provided it weighs 4.4 tons or less and is going at 5 mph or less. However, if the driver increases the speed of their vehicle, or there is additional weight on the vehicle, this could cause the safety barrier to fail.
Therefore, it is important that strict rules around vehicles speeds and maximum weights are adhered to on site. This will ensure that safety barriers can work to their optimum specifications.
It’s important to understand what a safety barrier can defend against, so you can be sure they provide effective protection. At A-SAFE, all our products come with impact ratings that have been rigorously tested – and our website even includes an interactive joules tool to help you see a products impact energy performance at a range of angles. Our team are always on hand to help.
Find out more
When investing in safety systems, it’s important to understand what standards and regulations are in place to help you invest in effective products from trusted suppliers.
PAS 13 is the code of practice for safety barrier installation and testing. It was created by the British Standards Institution in conjunction with a steering group of blue-chip companies and the Health and Safety Executive. A-SAFE was the technical author and sponsor of the paper.
It was designed to help people apply the correct configuration of safety barriers on site as well as standardizing the guidelines around testing safety barriers. The impact ratings of PAS 13-compliant products can be trusted as they must meet specific criteria.
All A-SAFE safety barriers and bollards are PAS 13 compliant, meaning you can trust them to protect your staff, machinery and infrastructure from unwanted impacts.
Get a quote now
Hopefully, this has given you some insights into the basic elements that make up safety barriers, and the various types of industrial barriers available.
At A-SAFE, we have a range of safety barriers for you, whether you need warehouse protection, effective traffic management, pedestrian segregation support or heavy-duty protection for machinery and structures. Call our sales team on (443) 776- , us at [ protected] or use the contact form below and find out what we can do for you.
First Name * Last Name * Number * Enter * Company Name * Forms.ContactUs.Postcode * Country * Reason For Contact Where did you hear about us? Opt-in to our newsletter, to find out more about A-SAFE news, products and events. Opt-in to our newsletter, to find out more about A-SAFE news, products and events. Recaptcha *Guardrails are used to separate people, structures, machinery and valuable assets from heavy forklifts weighing more than 10,000 pounds. The requirements for durability and impact resistance are demanding, yet many don’t understand what types of impacts their systems can endure, and under what circumstances. The issue is compounded by the fact that many manufacturers simply don’t provide impact ratings for their guard rails. Some companies fabricate and install home-made railing, which is likely to never have been rated at all.
What can you do to ensure your guard railing system can protect your employees and property the way it’s supposed to?
Some manufacturers simply don’t publish impact ratings for their guard rail. This may be because they don’t want to commit to a number in print, but more likely it’s because these ratings are difficult to digest and understand. It may be that the manufacturer simply does not know what its rail is capable of withstanding. Some manufacturers use different standards to establish impact ratings, meaning that you simply can’t look at one system that claims it can withstand 12,000 pounds and compare it to another that claims it can withstand 10,000 pounds and assume the former is sturdier guard rail. To know this, you must know what standard was used to establish the rating.
No: there are no government regulations regarding guard rails, other than fall-protection railing on mezzanines or elevated platforms. Consequently, there is no standard definition of what impact ratings actually represent, and no requirement that guard rails have been tested or engineered to any particular strength. Facilities where pedestrians and forklifts operate in the same space aren’t regulated at all for floor-level applications. No requirements are set for the presence of guard rails or how heavily those rails must be built.
While there is no industry standard, many guardrail manufacturers state their products are designed to withstand a 10,000 pound collision at 4 miles per hour. The MHI (Material Handling Industry)’s Protective Guarding Group is currently working toward standards, but has not yet reached any conclusions. Various manufacturers test their systems separately.
For instance, Steel King releases its full testing methodology for its Steel Guard rail system. The company tested its system by driving an 8,000-pound, sit-down counterbalance forklift with pneumatic tires into an 8′ guard rail. The lift traveled in reverse at 5 miles per hour at initial impact. After the one-second impact, the guardrail had a 6″ dent. There was no damage to the forklift, and no observed damage to the concrete floor; no anchor bolts had been loosened, bent, or pulled out. The result for a two-rail system was a rating of 13,000 pounds.
Every manufacturer tests differently, and many will do what Steel King did, and document exactly how their ratings were calculated. Since guard rail is critical safety equipment, it’s important to know how published impact ratings were calculated and tested.
No; not at all. Facility rails are built to deflect an impact and maintain integrity. Highway rails absorb and disperse impacts. That’s why you see shredded or crumpled rails at accident scenes. When an industrial guard rail is hit, it will sustain damage, but doesn’t crumple by design. It holds its ground as best it can, where roadway rails reduce impact and slow vehicles. They’re designed to protect the car and driver, where industrial rails are designed to protect what’s behind the rail.
A fully-loaded forklift carries 8,000 to 10,000 pounds, so an adequate guard rail should be able to deflect it. However, this can be counted on the first time it’s hit. Previous collisions may reduce that rating. If you’re protecting people in a work cell, traffic aisle or other area, it’s crucial to identify and replace damaged/weakened guard railing. I recommend that you replace any damaged railing, even if it is protecting machinery or a facility wall or other areas that don’t typically have people present. Also, look at the way the impact has been transferred to the floor. Seemingly minor impacts can reduce guard rail effectiveness.
It changes the game, and for forklifts it changes the game a lot. Remember, these ratings apply to vehicles at whatever the standard was established at (usually 4 or 5 miles per hour) by the manufacturer and testing engineer. Any faster, and the ratings decline. Forklifts going even one mile per hour faster will hit much harder due to weight and density. OSHA recommends that lifts travel no faster than 5 MPH, which is more than fast enough in most circumstances. Lower speeds help prevent accidents in the first place, but also mean that rails and bollards can do their jobs and stop the lift if they must.
It absolutely does. Most ratings assume a 90-degree impacts. Ratings for a forklift traveling backwards can be different than if the vehicle was moving forward or at an angle.
You should use only the hardware specified in your manufacturers’ installation guide. Flimsier, shorter bolt anchors into the floor or to attach rails will compromise the rail’s impact rating.
They’re useful in critical areas because the ability to survive a hit is only part of it. The ability to take 2,000 pounds more can be the difference between a minor accident and a major incident. Not only can the rails take more damage, they deflect less, and less deflection is what you want. This is because the heavier rails won’t deflect a forklift back as far as a lighter one. If you cut 5″ off the deflection, the lift may not smash into something–or someone–else in the area.
Probably not. Unrated rails may be inexpensive imports or “home brew”. If you install guard railing, you need it to be able to actually do the job it was designed to do. Not knowing its rating means you can’t know its limitations. In general, you want at least 11 gauge corrugated steel for the rails, and heavy tubular posts. Not all yellow painted steel rail can really safeguard your people and critical assets. There are areas where rails could be installed that are designed for pedestrian traffic control, and not to contain forklifts, of course.
No. A vehicle weighing enough, at a high enough speed, will probably take down most guard rails, in particular if the driver doesn’t let up. That typically doesn’t happen, but it can. Like many other safety measures, guardrails are limited in their effectiveness. But they do work in many situations, and can save lives and property when properly specified and installed.
Guard rails should be installed in preference to paint strips or striping where people afoot and forklifts work in the same space, or where there is critical machinery, storage equipment, or infrastructure. But to be sure your rails can sustain forklift impacts, understand the rail’s impact ratings and track it any time the rail has been hit. Also understand that published capacity ratings are subject to a number of factors–angle, previous impacts, forklift speed and more. This also goes for standalone bollards or other impact
When properly laid out, guard rails don’t inhibit operational speed, but do significantly enhance safety. Contact Cisco-Eagle or another qualified company for assistance.
Tags: traffic management, guard rail systems, facility safety, hand rails, bollards
If you are looking for more details, kindly visit steel traffic crash barrier.