Endurance of rockfall protection fences

Introduction Research on rockfall protection systems usually focuses on the performance of flexible barriers regarding their limit or design energy retention capacity. The majority of all barriers installed in the alpine area were built many years ago and there is little knowledge on their long-term performance. An investigation of all rockfall barriers protecting a sector of the Swiss railways (SBB) was performed to obtain an overview of their conditions. This project delivered a detailed analysis of more than 100 single barriers as well as a statistically evaluable overview. It also allows a comparison between different generations of barrier types.