Abstract
Guardrails are systems designed to keep vehicles in certain places, by preventing access in dangerous areas. They can be a source of injuries because their rigid structure, designed to face high level of strength. Depending on their speed and mass, vehicles can load guardrails in various forms. The authors propose the use of adaptive guardrails, involving polymers, which react different by different load levels. The behaviour is studied using modeling and simulation with the FEM; different types of guardrails and external loads displacement and stress are presented, as support to choose the most convenient type of guardrail for each application. Keywords: adaptive guardrails, traffic security, polymers, FEM simulation