Design of a Stable Traffic Cone

Abstract

Traffic cones are a common sight on roads in most countries but due to their commonplace nature people tend not to think too much about their design and the importance of them in maintaining safe traffic flow is often overlooked. Traffic cones have become a product that is taken for granted in daily life for most people. Traffic cones are so easy to see on the road and yet are readily neglected by people. Never the less traffic cones are still important for safety and guiding traffic flow even though they are so simple.

A traffic cone consists of a relatively thin walled cone above a square hollow base. In order to increase the cones stability, the base is usually weighted therefore lowering the centre of gravity of the entire traffic cone. Traffic cones are typically produced in plastic or composite materials for reasons of safety and cost.

A literature search of a range of books and professional magazines has turned up little related research and few reports on the topic of traffic or road cones. It appears that road- cones receive little attention by people, due to their simple profile and inexpensive production cost.

Most current products are designed with a considerable amount of weight in the base in order to increase the stability of the traffic cone, which consumes a relatively large amount of material. Stability cannot be significantly increased using this design strategy without increasing the amount of material and the cost of production. Therefore optimization of the design to improve flexibility and stability would be investigated without compromising the appearance or manufacturing costs.