Trelleborg fenders for Felixstowe South

Richard Hepworth, managing director of Trelleborg Marine Systems explained, “With global shipping trends showing that the UK will need to double its present container capacity to meet demand in 2025, expanding the UK’s ports is of strategic importance.

“There has been a significant rise in demand for a new breed of super sized fenders designed to tackle greater load bearing requirements, brought about by the strong movement towards larger vessel sizes that is taking place. While some ports have been slow to upgrade their infrastructure to accommodate larger vessels, the Port of Felixstowe is well aware of the need to develop its capabilities to accommodate larger vessels.”

When fully developed, the reconfiguration will increase the quay length available for container handling by close to 900m, giving a total quay length of 1,285m. Together with the port’s Trinity Terminal, Felixstowe will be able to provide a total of over 4 km of deep water container facilities, and total capacity at the port will increase by nearly 50%.

With a relatively small coping beam on the jetty, Trelleborg engineers were able to design a solution in order to supply super cone fenders that could work around the requirements of this jetty. Trelleborg supplied SCN 1400 super cone fenders, which are designed to have a high energy capacity and low reaction force.

The conical shape means the fender maintains stability under all combinations of axial, shear and angular loading. Super cone fenders are well suited for berths where heavy impacts need to be accommodated. To support the vessel sizes expected at Felixstowe South, the largest available examples were required.

Felixstowe South already has the deepest approach channel of any container port in the UK, currently standing at 14.5m below chart datum, and will be dredged to 16m alongside the quay wall. This will enable Felixstowe to handle more of the latest generation of container vessels.