Pros And Cons Of Horizontal Cable Railings - GLW Engineering Blog

Horizontal cable railings are a trendy option that’s enjoying a comeback as an alternative to metal, wood or glass barriers in residential and commercial properties. Cable railings are horizontal, twisted wire ropes attached to vertical posts made of metal or wood, with a top guard rail for safety and support.

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Cable railings are used in place of ‘traditional’ glass and steel balustrades along stairwells, access walkways, balconies, patios and other features. Let’s look at the advantages and drawbacks:

Benefits Of Cable Railing

Cable railings are typically made from stainless steel and attached to wood, steel, or vinyl posts. This makes them versatile enough to suit most architectural styles.

Stainless steel cable rails resist corrosion and are surprisingly budget-friendly, and cable systems can be developed in a range of tensile steels. Their fixing methods, clamps, and turnbuckles are easy to customise, and the cables themselves don’t need much maintenance: just regular tension adjustments and polishing, which employees can normally manage on their own, without needing third party maintenance.

Cable railing can even be attached vertically, providing a guard that gives users total visibility over their environment. Some industrial environments also use railing systems of this nature to expose floor-level lighting and minimise falls.

They’re also popular in marine applications for their weather resistance and durability. Their rigid, heavily-bundled filament/strand/core design has excellent structural integrity. Their tension can accommodate high loads on the posts, and their price is generally cheaper than solid stainless steel, aluminium, or other metal railings.

Drawbacks

Cable railings do have a few drawbacks, the most serious being they have insufficient integrity to prevent serious falls, and they require regular maintenance to preserve tensile strength. Loose cables are a hazard, and their small diameter reduces their visibility when compared to thicker metal filament. The cables themselves may need to be replaced regularly.

Cable Railing Building Regulations

UK Building Regulations include the following specifications relating to cable railing:

• Full-height structural guarding that’s combined with a lower handrail must be 600mm from the top of the second handrail.
• Railing must contrast visually with its background and must not be reflective. This points to one of cable railings’ greatest safety benefits: cables have a matt texture that improves contrast against their surroundings. The small diameter of the cables improves the visibility of the railing itself.
• The end of the railing must be finished in a way that minimises the risk of clothing becoming hooked onto the railing. Cable end fittings are generally rounded and closely positioned to the rail.
• Circular handrails must be a minimum 32- 50 mm in diameter.
• If your building will be used by children under five years of age, guarding must leave gaps of less than 100 mm.

Are Cable Railings Suitable For Your Project?

As our road toll continues to climb road safety experts, both here and in Australia, are constantly looking at the safety systems at their disposal to ensure motorists are kept safe at all times - even when an accident occurs.

Flexible wire rope road safety barrier systems (also known as WRSB) are being increasingly specified in median and side of road installations across the country by the NZ Transport Agency and Councils as evidence continues to prove that WRSB systems are far more forgiving on the human body, in both car and motorcyclist incidents, than any other type of barrier.

WRSB systems are designed to prevent traffic leaving the road or crossing the centre line and colliding with hazards such as other vehicles, trees and poles by 'catching' and then redirecting vehicles. When a vehicle impacts the wire rope safety barrier the cables flex, slowing the vehicle and pushing it back into its lane with the system absorbing the impact.

Flexible road safety barriers are narrow and work best on long, straight sections and gentle curves. More importantly though, the NZ Transport Agency says that, when fitted along the centre or the side of the road, they reduce the number of people killed by 70-80%.

‘Cheese cutter’ or not

“Motorcyclists have been opposed to flexible road safety barriers because they think the steel ropes will act like a 'cheese cutter' when hit by a rider,” says Voytek Wieczorek, Engineering and Technical Support Manager for CSP. “However studies have shown this assumption is incorrect. Motorcyclists are more likely to survive an impact with a flexible road safety barrier than impacts with trees, poles, concrete barrier or oncoming vehicles which the barrier will prevent them striking in a crash.''

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Wire Rope Barrier comes out on top

In research undertaken, the safety performance of road barriers in reducing the risk of injury was assessed, with hazardous events such as rolling over, striking three types of barriers (guardrails, concrete barrier walls, and cable barriers) with different barrier offsets to the edge of the travelled way, and striking various roadside objects being studied.

A total of single-vehicle crashes ( occupants) that occurred between and were analysed in a study in the USA.

The study found that the odds of injury are:

• 43% lower when striking guardrail over a median concrete barrier (offset 4.5 – 5.5m)
• 65% lower when striking a median concrete barrier (offset 2 – 4m).

The odds of injury when striking a near-side median cable barrier are:

• 57% lower than the odds for a guardrail face.
• 37% lower for a far side median cable barrier.

In other words - guardrail should be preferred over a concrete wall and wire rope cable barrier should be preferred over guardrail - where the road and traffic conditions allow

For more detail on the study click here.

“Although this study has its merits, road conditions in New Zealand and Australia are quite different to the USA,” says Julian Chisnall, NZ Transport Agency. “For instance we have a lot more curves in our roads - particularly in rural areas. You will see a lot of concrete barrier on motorways where the angle of impact is likely to be less in an accident. We tend to use concrete on motorways. However in the case of the Waikato Expressway, where we had the room to create a large median strip, we have used a lot of WRSB. It’s certainly much more forgiving on the vehicle occupants in a crash.”

For a report from Transport and Road Safety (TARS) on Motorcycle Crashes into Roads Safety Barriers dated December , click here.

Over the years Brynderwyn Hill on State Highway 1 north of Auckland has been a notorious hot spot for motor vehicle crashes. In late the NZ Transport Agency, as part of the Safe System project, instigated the widening of the road, the removal of tight corners and the installation of 14kms of wire rope barrier using CSP’s Brifen WRSB system – to separate north and south bound traffic from the top to the bottom of the hill.

CSP’s Brifen Wire Rope system was chosen over others due to its interwoven cable system which is best suited to curved installations. When the barrier is impacted the interwoven cable system ensures the tension is kept on the cables at all times, even on tight radii.

In the year to 31 July , the barriers were hit 37 times with enough force to require repairs to the wire rope and replacement of fence posts. Each time the barriers are damaged NZ Transport Agency says that a serious crash has been avoided, and someone has been able to drive or walk away from the incident. Each time the centre line barrier is damaged a potential head on collision has been avoided.

Armorwire – the easiest and quickest WRSB system to install

The Rangiriri section of the Waikato Expressway opened in late and features more than 20 kms of road barrier - 14kms of which is CSP’s Armorwire Wire Rope Safety Barrier and 7kms being CSP’s Nu-Guard® 31 Guardrail System.

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