ÈIt is essential to verify the results in actual tests, and for this reason Artigiana Costruzioni carries out individual experiments at its own testing field on the behaviour of some elements of the barrier: friction brake, rope-net panels, anchoring devices, clamped joints and upright-baseplate constraints.

All the materials used are strictly new and of first-time use, and are provided with a certificate of origin, the first step toward a production guaranteed with the EN ISO 9000 system.
Following the individual testing phase, Artigiana Costruzioni prepares the prototype of the new barrier and carries out a series of full-scale field tests. The main purpose of these tests is to verify the proper performance of the barrier and all its components.
The research effort is long, demanding and painstaking, but it is essential to provide a product that is valid from every point of view and capable of positively passing the approval tests, while at the same time being of simple construction and of equally easy installation.
The product certification is entrusted to internationally qualified and recognized universities or material testing laboratories.

The testing field is located 1300 m above sea level in Valmalenco, in the Northern Italian province of Sondrio, in the heart of the Bernina mountain range of the central Alps. The field, located in an abandoned serpentine quarry, is suitable for the construction of a facility for carrying out vertical fall experiments. It is equipped with a derrick crane for the movements and release of testing blocks and an office structure housing the personnel employed during the tests and the data acquisition and processing computer.
The testing blocks, made of reinforced concrete with a polyhedron geometry as shown in the figure, have a suitable mass for developing a falling speed of at least 25 m/sec and a kinetic energy upon impact against the boulder fence of 50 to 5,000 KJ. These values are assumed as approval energy levels for the barriers under consideration.
The boulder fence subjected to testing, consisting of a functional module with a minimum of three rope-net panels, is installed with a sub-horizontal inclination on a rock face of the former quarry, the angle of incidence of the trajectory of the falling block changes as the inclination of the barrier itself changes. Normally, an angle of inclination of 20° equal to the zenithal inclination of the wall immediately uphill from the barrier itself is assumed.
After the release of the different test blocks and during the relative impacts, the strains induced on the barrier's connecting structure and the ones transmitted to the foundations are monitored and acquired by a computer program connected to suitably positioned load cells.

The falling speed of the test boulder, the maximum deformation, and the residual deformation of the barrier are controlled and monitored by a computer program connected to one or more high-speed cameras (see figure of test boulder, location plan and side view of field).
From the measurement of the maximum elastic curve, it is possible to calculate the value of the potential energy of the test block at the point of impact, with reference to the point of maximum curve of the barrier. This value is not added to the kinetic energy upon impact but is only considered as a safety value of the barrier.