Reliability of Timber Fender Systems in Waterfront Facilities

Due to the deterioration of existing timber fender systems in waterfront facilities, high performance, composite replacement components for these structures are in demand. The performance criteria for these replacement components must meet or exceed the performance of existing timber systems. For this reason, a reliability analysis of existing timber fender systems has been performed to establish (1) the level of performance in existing timber fender systems; and (2) target performance levels for new composite replacement components. The design of waterfront fender systems is based on energy considerations. The most widely used and accepted method for determining the applied energy created by the docking ship is the kinetic energy method. Based on the applied kinetic energy of the docking ship and the response of the timber elements, a load model was developed to investigate the effect of several parameters on the system reliability. Investigations were conducted to determine the effect of variability and...