page_title: Guard rail
section_title: Polymer Guardrail
hierarchical_section_title: Guard rail / Facility safety / Types of guardrail / Polymer Guardrail
caption_attribution_description: English: A-SAFE flexible polymer guardrail with handrail for pedestrians and high strength lower rail to absorb vehicle impacts.
context_page_description: Guard rail, guardrails, or protective guarding, in general, are a boundary feature and may be a means to prevent or deter access to dangerous or off-limits areas while allowing light and visibility in a greater way than a fence. Common shapes are flat, rounded edge, and tubular in horizontal railings, whereas tetraform spear-headed or ball-finialled are most common in vertical railings around homes. Park and garden railings commonly in metalworking feature swirls, leaves, plate metal areas and/or motifs particularly on and beside gates.
  High security railings may instead feature jagged points and most metals are well-suited to anti-climb paint.
  A handrail is less restrictive on its own than a guard rail and provides support.
  Guardrails also apply in a technology context.
context_section_description: In 1992 a yellow polymer cover sleeve for steel guardrails was introduced by a Detroit-based company which enhanced the visibility of steel safety guardrails in industrial environments and removed the need for continual repainting. This polymer cover was the beginning of polymer guardrail in the industrial environment. At the turn of the 21st century, several companies developed safety products constructed with polymer designed specifically for industrial environments and in 2001 a dedicated industrial alternative to steel guardrail was invented by a British-based company, and thus the first fixed flexible polymer safety guardrail was introduced to the market. In the early 2000s, an Italian company added a version of a polymer bumper providing small bumpers for walls and equipment in the food industry. A Belgian company also introduced a flexible barrier in 2010 and in 2014 a US based company introduced a hybrid polymer-steel guardrail for industrial environments.
  There are many types of polymer used in manufacturing safety guardrail. Polymer grains may be blended as part of the production process in order to enhance the natural properties of polymer in different ways. The most common types of polymer used are: polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Using these types of polymer, there are three basic design philosophies for polymer guardrails:
  Impact Dispersal, which applies multi-component engineering to enable guardrails to bend on impact, absorbing and dispersing energy, before returning to their original shape.
  Hybrid, which features a steel core encased in polymer.
  Central Fix, which utilizes a solid polymer post fixed into the ground with cement and steel subterranean fixings.
  The Polymer Impact Dispersal Safety Guardrail design offers an advantage over steel guardrails. Steel guardrails, if impacted with sufficient energy, will permanently deform and require repair or replacement to the impacting vehicle, the guardrail itself, and even the floor substrate.  Where the Impact Dispersal Safety Guardrail design allows the guardrail to bend on impact, disperse the energy, and return to its original shape.  Resulting in no damage to the guardrail or the impacting vehicle.
caption: Flexible polymer guardrail with handrail for pedestrians and high strength lower rail to absorb vehicle impacts
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