For rubber fenders. there are a number of different standards used worldwide to design fender systems. The most commonly used one, is the PIANC "Guidelines for the design of fender systems, 2002", which is the update of its predessecor from 1984. In Japan the Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS) are commonly used, whereas in the United Kingdom and the United States of America, the British Standard BS 6349:part 4 still used quite regularly.

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Designing a fender system basically is determining what the berthing energy of a vessel or range of vessels will be, then determine what capacity the fender needs to have to absorb that kinetic energy and finally how to find a way to avoid the reaction force creating too much hull pressure. In principle, a berthing energy calculation is a simple kinetic energy calculation, adjusted for specific behaviour of a berthing vessel or the specific characteristics of the berthing location or structure.