Depending upon your site requirements, guardrail barriers can be easily configured for optimal performance and cost efficiency. Below is a breakdown of some of the options available, and some information pertaining to each configuration. (For a brief overview of what guardrail is and its use as a positive barrier system, read the Beginner's Guide to Guardrail.)

As mentioned in the Beginner's Guide, guardrail has a number of design configurations, consisting of:

Each change will ultimately vary the working width, or deflection, of the barrier system. Some examples:

Highway guardrail items are governed under the specification AASHTO M-180-00.
For a copy, please visit the AASHTO bookstore at bookstore.transportation.org

W-Beams
(3D CAD Detail of Typical Section)

	W-Beam Details	Class A (12 ga)		Class B (10 ga)
	Thickness	0.105 in	2.67 mm	0.135 in.	3.43 mm
	Beam Width (min)	12 in	305 mm	12 in.	305 mm
	Beam Depth (min)	3 in	76 mm	3 in.	76 mm
	Cross-Sectional Area	2.01 sq. in.	1297 sq. mm.	2.58 sq. in.	1665 sq. mm
	Weight	6.82 lb/ft	10.15 kg/m	8.77 lb/ft	13.05 kg/m
	Moment of Inertia	2.34 in.^4	973,980 mm^4	3.01 in.^4	1,252,860 mm^4
	Section Modulus	Horizontal: 2.25 x 10^4 mm^3	Vertical: 8.03 x 10^4 mm^3

Thrie-Beams
(3D CAD Detail of Typical Section)

	T-Beam Details	Class A (12 ga)		Class B (10 ga)
	Thickness	0.105 in	2.67 mm	0.135 in.	3.43 mm
	Beam Width (min)	20 in	508 mm	20 in.	508 mm
	Beam Depth (min)	3 in	76 mm	3 in.	76 mm
	Cross-Sectional Area	3.12 sq. in.	2013 sq. mm.	4.01 sq. in.	2587 sq. mm
	Weight	10.5 lb/ft	15.63 kg/m	13.5 lb/ft	20.09 kg/m
	Moment of Inertia	3.76 in.^4	1,565,000 mm^4	4.83 in.^4	2,010,000 mm^4
	Section Modulus	Horizontal: 2.28 x 10^4 mm^3

Below are the four M-180 approved designators for different punching and coating thickness options.

For information on coating thicknesses, read the white paper on The Comparison of Hot Dip (Type 2) vs Pre-Galv (Type 1) (In Acrobat - Get Reader Here)

We are able to custom shop curve guardrail beams with radii of 5 ft (1.5m) to 150 ft (45.7m).

Curves can be either convex or concave.

Concave: Bowing away from the traffic lane Convex: Bowing towards the traffic lane

Radius Calculator

A sample chart of some radius' with the curvature data:

NOTE: This curve chart is not complete.

For more information on arc calculations, check out this webpage which has a complete breakdown of calculating arcs with any given variable:http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.circle.segment.html