Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College

George Z Voyiadjis

Sherif El-Tawil

Jin-Woo Choi

Aly Mousaad Aly

A system and method are disclosed for overheight vehicle impact avoidance and incident detection. A detection subsystem of the system determines whether an incoming vehicle is clear to pass, depending at least on its height. The detection subsystem relies on distance sensors located along the freeway to detect the highest point of the vehicle and outputs an indication of whether the vehicle can pass. A warning subsystem receives the indication that a vehicle is overheight and provides a warning indication to the driver about the vehicle's inability to pass an upcoming structure. The warning subsystem may also perform a variety of other tasks, such as, for example, logging a variety of information about the vehicle and the incident, sending data about the incident locally to a central command, and generating reports.

Overheight vehicles impact avoidance and incident detection system

A system is disclosed for protecting supporting structures, such as those of a bridge or other such marine supporting structure, from the force of an impact of a vehicle/vessel. Such a system includes a plurality of modular components arranged in series and configured to dissipate the energy of the force through the progressive buckling of one or more of the modular components. Each modular component contains an energy dissipation unit that includes a plurality of adjacent cells. The energy of the force is dissipated in the buckling of the walls of the cells of the energy dissipation units through the formation of one or more plastic hinges and/or volume reduction of the cells.

Growing community of inventors

Baton Rouge, LA, United States of America

George Z Voyiadjis