## 2 Experimental Program
### Test Setup and Instrumentation  
The concrete deck of the barrier was anchored to the 1000 mm laboratory rigid floor with two 50 mm diameter threaded rods, which were spaced 600 mm center-to-center from each other. The threaded rods were tightened using specified nuts and half-inch-thick plates acting as washers at the top and bottom of the rods. Above the bolted connection was a steel-intensive setup consisting of W shapes, HSS sections, steel plates, and other custom shapes. All the steel members acted as support for the load cell and hydraulic jack. In front of the hydraulic jack was a W-shaped member reinforced with several stiffeners, and it had a robust axis aligned with the direction of the load. Behind the W-shaped member was a piece of timber stud, cut to a trapezoidal shape, to fill the gaps between the vertical end of the loading system and the tapered surface of the front face of the barrier wall. The mechanism positioned in front of the load jack was employed to create a distributed load pattern. This setup was placed at the correct height, which was 990 mm above the concrete deck. Lastly, behind the barrier was an anchored HSS section with steel plates wedged between the gap of the barrier and the steel HSS. In the case of the barrier resting on the deck slab overhang, the same HSS section was used, but additional solid cylindrical steel sections were placed beneath the barrier. These measures were used to prevent any sliding of the barriers under horizontal loading and to minimize errors in displacement readings, as shown in Figure 5(a).  
The data acquisition unit was used to record and store the readings of all sensors during testing. A total of 10 linear variable displacement transducers (LVDTs) and potentiometers (POTs) were used in the case of a cantilevered barrier, and a total of 8 were used in the case of the barrier resting over a thick solid slab. Two POTs were used to measure the deck uplift displacement, while three POTs were used to measure the horizontal displacement of the deck slab at 500 mm from the top of the laboratory floor. Three LVDTs were used to measure displacement at a height of 1490 mm from the laboratory rigid floor level at the rear of the barrier wall, as this was the location directly behind the applied load. This setup of displacement monitoring was present for all barriers; however, barriers with a cantilevered portion had two extra LVDTs. These two extra LVDTs were installed in a position to measure the vertical deflection of the cantilevered portion of the deck slab, as  
Figure 6: Test setup.  
shown in Figure 6b. To keep all LVDTs and POTs in their correct placements throughout testing for each barrier specimen, a wood structure was used for all sensors at the rear of the barrier, and the two POTs measuring uplift of the deck were mounted onto separate 2 \(\times\) 4 timber studs, which were ultimately mounted onto external W-shaped pedestals. Three concrete strain gauges were installed at the rear of the barrier wall at a height of approximately 625 mm above the rigid floor. Barrier walls were loaded in increments of 10 kN and were held for approximately 2-3 min to allow for crack monitoring and marking. The test stopped when the specimen could not take any increase in applied loading.