With the development of China's shipping industry fender The demand for fender performance is increasing. Among them, rubber fenders are most widely used because of their good toughness and impact resistance. At present, there are many manufacturers of rubber fenders in China, and the good and bad products are mixed. In order to survive in the fierce market competition, some manufacturers unilaterally take low price competition as the main means, do not strictly comply with the relevant standards and processes, use low-quality raw materials or excessively use recycled rubber to reduce costs, which brings great hidden dangers to the safety of docks and ships. Relevant experts said that rubber fender manufacturers should strictly implement relevant national standards, strict process flow, enhance independent innovation ability, constantly improve product quality, and provide reliable and safe products for China's shipping industry and shipbuilding industry.

It is understood that there are many types of rubber fenders on the market at present, mainly including crimp type, inflatable type, lateral loaded cylinder type (drum type), docking V type (i.e. X type) and flexible pile type. When designing and producing rubber fenders, manufacturers should consider the reaction force acting on the hull and berthing components of the wharf, the deformation of the fenders after absorbing the kinetic energy of the ship, the reaction force acting on the hull caused by the deformation of the fenders, the relative stiffness of the fenders, the effectiveness of the energy absorption of the fenders in the case of non forward collision, the rate at which the fenders decelerate the ship's berthing speed, the friction coefficient between the fender system and the hull The infrastructure investment and maintenance cost of fender system and supporting components, the contact mode between hull and fender, and many other factors. Users can choose different types of rubber fenders according to the actual situation. Except for tugs and small ships, large tonnage ships are generally not equipped with rubber fenders. Inflatable rubber fenders are mainly used to protect the wharf and hull when berthing.

The market capacity of rubber fenders is not very large and the competition is very fierce compared with the supporting markets such as marine main engines and ship plates in the shipbuilding industry. Li Haie, Deputy General Manager of China Shipping Rubber (Qingdao) Industry Co., Ltd., said that the annual market capacity of rubber fenders in China is more than 2 billion yuan, and there are only three or four manufacturers with high visibility. They are mainly targeted at key ports and shipbuilding enterprises, with more customized products, so the market share is high and the benefits are good. However, some manufacturers that produce more general-purpose products and have low profits can only adopt the strategy of low price competition, or even use low-quality materials or high proportion of recycled rubber to seek to reduce costs, which is common in a region where there are many rubber fender manufacturers in Jiangsu. Li Haie pointed out that the low-quality rubber fenders are extremely harmful. They not only have a short service life, but also will cause serious damage to the wharf and berthing ships once damaged.

Song Baoqing, Secretary General of the Rubber Miscellaneous Sub Technical Committee of the National Technical Committee for Rubber and Rubber Products Standardization, who is responsible for the formulation and revision of China's rubber fender standards and the centralized management of technology, also shares this feeling. At present, the standards adopted by China's solid rubber fenders are GB/T 21537-2008 Conical Rubber Fenders and HG/T 2866-2003 Rubber Fenders. The inflatable rubber fenders are CB-T 3948 Marine Inflatable Rubber Ball and ISO17357:2002 High pressure Floating Pneumatic Rubber Fenders. The filled floating rubber fenders are new products that have only appeared in recent years, At present, there are no international standards or industrial standards. Song Baoqing pointed out that the standards of various types of rubber fenders in China are not backward compared with those in foreign countries, but the uneven implementation of standards by manufacturers makes the products good and bad, which brings hidden dangers to the development of China's shipping industry and shipbuilding industry. She said that adding recycled rubber to raw materials can better improve processing performance and meet the requirements of green environmental protection. As for how much recycled rubber will have adverse effects on product quality and service life, there is no quantitative analysis data at present, so the use of recycled rubber cannot be simply questioned. However, the use of high-quality raw materials is an important basis for ensuring product quality, which is beyond doubt.

Rubber fenders are mainly used by shipbuilding enterprises as safety protection for outfitting of ships berthing at docks. Relevant people said that the quality of products is the first. If a collision accident occurs due to the quality problem of rubber fenders when a new ship is outfitting at the wharf, which leads to damage to the hull, the new ship will have to be reworked and repaired, or even cause delay. Compared with ports, rubber fenders are not the main production facilities of shipbuilding enterprises, and shipyards also pay more attention to the cost performance of rubber fenders, but the product quality cannot be ignored.

It is the only way for the standardized and sustainable development of rubber fender industry to benchmark foreign advanced enterprises, strictly implement standards, and strengthen the independent innovation ability of enterprises. Experts said that Chinese rubber fender manufacturers should closely follow the development trend of foreign intelligent fender technology, take the initiative to benchmark and adopt foreign advanced standards, enhance independent innovation ability, constantly improve product performance, and strive to achieve continuous upgrading of products. At the same time, we should be self-discipline and self-improvement, focus on reducing costs and improving product quality, and do not engage in vicious competition at low prices. In addition, under the general framework of abiding by the relevant agreements and regulations of the World Trade Organization, China should strengthen the formulation, revision, implementation and inspection of the standards for rubber fenders, strengthen the publicity of the importance of the quality of rubber fenders to the safety of docks and ships, standardize the market order, and make it difficult to produce low-quality rubber fenders without a market.