Bollards and safety barriers

What it is

Bollards and safety barriers protect buildings, people and equipment from vehicle impact. In industrial buildings they guard door jambs, columns, racking, fire equipment, gas meters and pedestrian routes from forklifts and trucks. Outside, they protect shopfronts, fuel dispensers, loading docks and car park edges. The common workhorse is a steel pipe bollard, either embedded in a concrete footing and filled with concrete, or welded to a base plate and anchored to the slab.

World Steel fabricates bollards and barriers as part of misc. metals packages for warehouses, logistics centres, fuel stations and factories, often alongside canopies and industrial guardrails.

Types and options

Common pipe sizes range from about 100 to 200 mm (4 to 8 in) diameter in standard or heavy wall thickness, with heights typically around 900–1,200 mm (36–48 in) above grade. Options include reflective bands, plastic sleeves, chain eyes, sign brackets and caps.

Design and compliance

Ordinary traffic bollards and barriers are designed for the vehicle and impact the owner expects; the building code loads for vehicle barriers in parking structures (ASCE 7 in the US, AS/NZS 1170.1 in Australia, EN 1991-1-1 in Europe) are often used as a reference, together with the anchorage design for the slab or footing (ACI 318 Chapter 17, AS 5216 or EN 1992-4). Footings, embedment depth and concrete fill are as important as the steel section: most bollard failures are foundation failures.

Security bollards are different. A crash rating under ASTM F2656 (for example M30, M40 or M50 with P1–P4 penetration) or IWA 14-1 belongs to a specific system that has been impact-tested as installed, including its foundation. World Steel does not claim crash ratings: we fabricate the steel components to the tested design supplied by the client or the system owner, under that owner's inspection requirements, and the rating remains the system owner's responsibility.

If a project requires a certified road restraint or crash-rated product, the test reports and certification must come from the owner of the tested system, not from the fabricator.

Fabrication and finishing at World Steel

Pipes are cut to length, base plates and stiffeners are CNC-cut and drilled, and welding is carried out by qualified welders to AWS D1.1, AS/NZS 1554.1 or EN ISO 3834-2 procedures. Embedded bollards are supplied with vent holes and domed or capped tops as detailed. After shot blasting, items are hot-dip galvanized by qualified galvanizers to ASTM A123 / AS/NZS 4680 / EN ISO 1461 and, where specified, finished with a safety-yellow or black-and-yellow paint system. See paint and coating systems.

Installation and site notes

• Embedded bollards are set plumb in the footing excavation, braced, then concreted and filled.
• Surface-mounted bollards are anchored with the anchor type and embedment shown on the drawings; check slab thickness and edge distances first.
• Removable bollards need sleeves cast in at the correct level, kept clean and drained.
• Touch up damaged coatings to ASTM A780 or the regional equivalent and re-apply reflective bands.

Selecting and specifying

Send a site plan with bollard positions, the type (embedded, surface-mounted, removable), pipe size, height and finish, plus footing or slab details. For security bollards, provide the tested system drawings, material and welding requirements and the system owner's inspection plan. Bollards fit easily into a combined package with cast-in items and building accessories.