Cable Barrier Videos - WMV Format
- Cut 1 - the tension was 8, 260 pounds and the cut was made with a K-12 circular saw between two undamaged posts. You will see that the cable retracted straight back about 15 feet to the posts. There was no whipping but there was significant unraveling of the strands, so it is important that the person doing the cutting be protected with heavy gloves. We also recommend that if a cable must be cut, that it be cut just far enough from the impact area to be able to cut between two undamaged posts.
- Cut 2 - the tension was 9,340 pounds and the cut was made with a portable combi-cutter between two undamaged posts. Although it is not very visible until the end of this video, we used three to 4 wraps of duct tape on the left side of the firefighter to see if it would control the unraveling. If you look closely at the end of the video, you will notice that the cable on the left side of the firefighter had no unraveling whatsoever while the untreated cable to the right of the firefighter again had significant unraveling. Therefore, we strongly recommend that duct tape or some other form of tape be used before cutting to prevent unraveling.
- Cut 3 - the tension was 8,300 pounds and the cut was made with a hydraulic cutter in an area without posts to simulate a situation where many posts have been knocked down. In this video, the cable was being pulled about 15 to 20 feet from the center of the median to simulate the stretching caused by a vehicle. Again, we always recommend cutting between two undamaged posts, but we wanted to demonstrate what would happen if the cable was cut in an area where the cable had been stretched and a number of posts were knocked down. In this cut, we wanted to test if the cable would whip back toward the center of the median because it was being stretched. As you will see, the result was very similar to the previous two cuts. We did not tape the ends, so you can see the unraveling, but there was absolutely none of the anticipated whipping action.