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Steel panel
with PE facing
Rubber
block fender
Why Fender?
Day to day berthing operations: Absorbs energy from berthing vessels
Long term: Protects the berthing structure and vessels during abnormal /
hostile berthing or mooring situations
Common Misconceptions
Steel is a more critical component than rubber
Fenders are a commodity: selection requires little technical knowledge
Low cost fenders do the same job as good quality fenders
Suppliers always provide the quality specified and paid for
Background
Low cost fenders are in use, due to:
Lack of knowledge about the production process
Lack of understanding about compound quality and its impact on
performance and longevity
Current test methods/specifications and quality control (QC)
practices are unable to establish fender quality
No tool is currently available to test the quality of commercial fenders
Testing Rubber Composition
Findings:
Compound variability
Differences in physical appearance
Deterioration due to inferior compound
composition
How do fenders work?
Natural
Rubber
Synthetic
Raw
Rubber
Rubber (SBR)
Mixture of 40-50%
Reclaimed rubber and other rubbish
Rubber (contaminated material)
Rubber compound
Fenders can not
be produced
from raw rubber
Natural
Rubber
Synthetic
Rubber
(SBR)
Rubber Fender
Reclaimed Compound
Rubber
Rubber compound
Natural
Rubber
Fillers and
Reclaimed
Rubber chemicals
Synthetic
Rubber Rubber
(SBR)
Compound
Natural: good mechanical properties but mechanical properties drop with heat, age, oxygen, O3
Synthetic: helps counter the drop in mechanical properties of natural rubber
Recycled: cost reduction, physical properties are lower than virgin rubber
Chemicals to make rubber compound
Oil is used
to mix
filler with
Reinforcing fillers Vs Non-reinforcing filler (Caco 3)
rubber
Antioxidants
Raw rubber + carbon black (filler) + oil + antioxidants
Synthetic
Rubber
(SBR)
Ingredients %
Antioxidant
Raw Rubber(Polymer) 40-45
Filler (Reinforcing) 30-40
Vulcanization Oil (functional additives) 20-10
Accelerator Others (S + ACC etc) 10-5
(Sulphur)
Total 100
Function Additive
Carbon black
Filler (Reinforcement)
Polymer
Compounding Structure
Superior Vs Inferior compound
Superior Inferior
More rubber and less filler Less rubber and more filler
Low/no non-reinforcing white filler (CaCo3), less High % of white filler (CaCo3), more
ash ash
Physical tests are conducted on rubber compounds and not on the final product
Element of doubt whether test compounds and production compounds are the
same or not
Not easy to prepare test samples from the commercial fenders without
destroying them
Why do we need superior rubber compound?
Factory test
performance
Application Performance
at extreme Rubber in the actual
temperatures Quality application
(TF) (VF)
Longevity
Rubber quality and factory test performance
Superior compound Inferior compound
Repeatable performance achieved Low performance: as low as
when tested in the factory at 1mm/s 50%
speed
Recovery after compression Slow recovery after
or compression set is low compression
Compression time
Type of rubber used in the formulation
Factory test
performance
Longevity
Samples chosen for longevity testing
Two samples were chosen for testing:
20% recycled rubber
75% recycled rubber
30C 30C
20C 20C
Predicted Predicted
life cycle life cycle
The fender with low recycled rubber has a lifecycle almost 10 times longer at 20c
A low cost commercial sized (600mm height) Rubber block of 150mm L x 135mm W x
cone fender from a low cost supplier 30mm T cut from the fender body
A high quality fender of the same size
Testing
A 30mm thick rubber block was sliced to Samples were punched from the 2mm rubber
sheets of 2mm thickness sheets using an ASTM D412 standard
specified die
Testing equipment
FTIR TGA
What we intend to determine
Function Additive
Carbon black
Filler (Reinforcement)
Polymer
Compound Structure
Physical property requirements given in the contract
Note: Study indicated properties are 15% less when samples taken from product
Chemical analysis: What we found
1.5
0.5
0
High Quality Low cost supplier (USA) Low cost
supplier (China)
Polymer/filler samples from Cell fender
(Australian Port)
Less than 1.2 Poor quality
1.4
1.2
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
Low cost supplier High quality supplier
(Japan) (Japan)
Density samples from Cone fender
(Australian Port)
More than 1.2 Poor quality
1.35
1.30
1.25
1.20
1.15
1.10
1.05
1.00
High Quality Supplier Low cost Low cost
supplier supplier
(USA) (China)
Density samples from Cell fender
(Australian Port)
More than 1.2 Poor quality
1.30
1.28
1.26
1.24
1.22
1.20
1.18
1.16
1.14
1.12
Low cost supplier (Japan) High quality supplier (Japan)
New specification
Polymer chemical quality compostion
Performance
(today)