Watch researchers driving trucks into the crash barriers that protect our Embassies at 50mph - as they stop dead while barely disturbing mock explosives carried in the truck bed
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If you've ever wondered exactly how effective the barriers erected around Embassies and other Federal buildings are, then researchers have just the video for you.
The Texas A&M Transportation Institute has released footage of a truck travelling at 50mph hitting the barriers.
While the cabin of the truck is destroyed, barrels at the rear, which were used to simulate an explosive device, remain relatively unscathed.
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The Texas A&M Transportation Institute has released footage of a truck travelling at 50mph hitting the barriers in a simulated terrorist attack.
The tests were carried out Texas A&M Transportation Institute's Proving Grounds Research Facility.
There, researchers have adapted a former Blue Bell ice cream delivery truck into a test vehicle.
The test was designed to simulate the act of terrorists driving a truck laden with explosives at the barrier.
'The goal of the test was to prevent the bed of the truck going 50 mph from passing one meter past the barrier,' the Institute said.
'The bed is where a bomb might be, and that's what the barrier is meant to keep out.'
It is part of the TTI's contract with the U.S. State Department to test various 'perimeter security devices' installed at embassies and other facilities around the world.
The moment of impact as the truck, fitted with a remote control system, is driven into a steel barrier at 50 mph.
'The focus is on keeping a terrorist from breaching the barrier,' Dean Alberson with TTI's Crashworthy Structures Program, told the Texas Tribune.
This particular crash test centered on a 24-foot-wide barrier buried 18 inches into the ground, Alberson said.
The goal was to prevent the truck bed from making it further than one meter past the barrier, a spot marked by a blue pole at the testing site.
None of the truck's bed made it past the barrier, marking the test a success, Alberson said.
The ability of a driver to survive such a crash is not a primary concern,researchers say.
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