BUILDING GUARDRAIL SAFETY: PERFORMANCE EVALUATION SCENARIO IN NORTHEAST BRAZIL

Resumen

Seven students from the Public University of El Alto (UPEA) died after falling from a height of almost 16 meters due to the collapse of a guardrail, and four other people were seriously injured, highlighting the importance of these fall protection elements for people's safety. This is why this study aims to study the safety of building guardrails that are installed in northeastern Brazil through the scenario of evaluating the performance of these elements. To this end, a survey of test data was collected from 188 technical test reports provided by an accredited laboratory. As a result, it was found that 35% of all guardrails tested in the northeast region presented unsatisfactory performance, with 55% of failures observed in Paraíba, with 44% of failures observed for the groups of guardrails of the grating, self-supporting glass and window sill type, with 71% of failures observed for guardrails of areas of collective use with high traffic of people, with 46% of failures observed for guardrails with projects and with 55% of failures being caused by non-compliance with the horizontal static force requirement. Therefore, it is expected that actions will be taken to promote the safety of guardrails.