Solid Rubber Fenders to Prevent Structural Damage in a Lowspeed Collision Between a Ship-Shaped Offshore Installation and a Shuttle Tanker Working Side-by-Side in Offloading Operation

Abstract

Ships and ship-shaped offshore installations are commonly equipped with pneumatic or solid rubber fenders to absorb kinetic energy during collisions, thereby reducing structural damage. The energy absorption capacity of these fenders must be precisely evaluated via reliable experimental, analytical, and numerical methods to ensure that the fenders are capable of preventing collision-associated structural failures. Accordingly, this study developed computational modelling techniques for analysing the energy absorption capacity of solid rubber fenders. Modelling was performed using LS-DYNA, a commercial software package for finite element simulation, and the developed models were validated by comparison with data from crushing tests on two types of solid rubber fender models – circular tube and V-shaped rubber fenders. The validated computational models were applied to examine a case study of a low-speed collision between a Suezmax class shuttle tanker and a very-large-crude-oil-carrier (VLCC) class ship-shaped offshore installation working side-by-side in offloading operation, with the latter equipped or not equipped with V-shaped rubber fenders, respectively. The results revealed that such fenders were effective protection against structural damage in such a collision scenario.