Flexible rockfall barriers are proven protection systems to mitigate the hazard
of rocks falling on people and infrastructure. To assure that such systems are
able to dynamically stop falling rocks in reality, several guidelines with fullscale
tests were introduced worldwide. These guidelines consider very standardized
and repeatable load cases but cannot take possible extreme loads
into account. Two examples of extreme loads were investigated, high-speed
rockfalls where the impact velocity is well above 25 m/s as described in the
testing guidelines, and a tree trunk strike with the same weight as a falling
rock but with a much smaller impact area. Finally, an overview of the performance
of fl exible barrier subject to dynamic area loads, such as debris fl ow,
shallow landslides or snow avalanches is given.