Metal skinning energy absorber for a backup marine fender system

Marine fenders incorporating elastic elements have been the most popular system to protectberthing structures due to their economic advantages. However, the failure of these elasticmarine fenders has been one of the major causes for unplanned downtime of berthing facilities. Abackup marine fender system integrated into conventional elastic fenders is proposed in thisstudy using a metal skinning mechanism. A series of experimental and numerical investigationsare carried out to evaluate the energy absorption behaviour of aluminium and brass rods withvarious skinning depths and impact energy. Reaction forces at impact and specific cutting energyare found to be highly dependent upon skinning depth. Acceleration Severity Index is used todemonstrate that the proposed metal skinning mechanism is capable of absorbing impact energyin a controllable and predictable manner without causing minor injury to the occupants ofberthing vessels. An implementation study of the proposed skinning mechanism, as a backupsystem, integrated within a conventional elastic marine fender shows the efficiency of the systemin absorbing berthing energy from various sized vessels.