Saferoads national product manager for temporary barriers Adrian Eastwood told CIN’s sister publication Contractor the IronMan could be used in a variety of settings and could be assembled by a few people.Each segment is interlinked by a vertical steel pivot pin, enabling the system to follow curves up to six degrees per segment, and offers a 38-metre radius.“The IronMan is very easily put together,” Eastwood said. “There is one other steel barrier on the market, but you have to bolt it together and anchor it to the ground, it can be quite cumbersome, whereas with the IronMan, as soon as you get it off the truck you can pin it together.”Eastwood said one of the IronMan’s main benefits was its longevity. “You can use it time and again and it can be repaired after impact. One of IronMan’s key features is its robust galvanised construction designed for a minimum 20-year lifespan.”He said the steel barrier system could be wheeled backwards and forwards into and out of place on retractable rollers. “You can actually just move it out by hand and then just lift the wheels up, and it becomes a barrier.”He said this was advantageous for roadside workers, enabling them to remove the barrier during peak traffic to clear the roadway and reduce congestion. In off-peak traffic, the system can easily be moved back, providing better protection and access for work crews and speedier construction.Eastwood said the IronMan was lightweight and stackable, meaning close to 144m of barrier length could be delivered to site on one truck, compared to 33m of concrete barriers on a single truck, and there was no need for special heavy-lifting cranes or crews.When the IronMan uses the optional anchors and is pinned to the roadway, deflection is diminished, enhancing worker safety, Eastwood said.“Deflection is very important in temporary barriers, because if a car hits the barrier, it moves back into the workers in the work zone,” he said.“Concrete moves 1.2 metres, whereas if you pin this IronMan barrier down, it has been tested to only move 40 centimetres when hit at 100 kilometres an hour.“Like all barriers, the IronMan provides a positive protection between the workers and the general public.”IronMan has been used on many worksites and was recently used on a road-widening project on the Monash Freeway. It has also been used on bridgework projects. In December last year, IronMan was used to protect a wire-rope installation worksite on Victoria’s Hume Freeway near Seymour.VicRoads reported in its worksite safety update bulletin that it believed the Hume Freeway project was the first time that a moveable safety barrier had been used in the state.A specially designed attachment on a skid steer loader enabled the IronMan barriers to be hoisted and transferred into their new position, allowing the flexibility to quickly open or close lanes depending on traffic flow.“The transfer attachment device attached to the [skid steer] allows the barriers to be lifted slightly in the vicinity of the machine and laterally transferred into their new position,” the bulletin said.“One pass took less than five minutes to achieve but should take less than 15 minutes allowing for movement in smaller increments and final adjustments.”
