Challenge:
The steel piles that are driven into the sea floor for the purpose of berthing and mooring ships at a shipbuilding facility in San Diego, have reached the end of their service life. HEA was tasked with helping the client create a pile replacement plan as well as create a fender assembly system that engages the entire pile group. The fender assembly must be removable and it has to be compatible with all the different configurations of pile groups
Resolution:
Field visits were conducted to determine all the unique pile group configurations so that the fender assembly fits on each. A bumper plate stiffened with wide-flange beams that run horizontally across the pile groups was designed so that the berthed ship loads are distributed more evenly among all the piles in a group. The loads on the bumper plate were checked using a commercially available structural analysis software. Clamp connections were designed so that the fender assembly can be set in place and removed as many times as required.
