Experimental Estimation of Material and Support Properties for Flexible Dolphin Structures

Present work describes the inverse problem for identification of material and support type properties of flexible dolphin structure. Most liquid bulk terminals are equipped with a jetty as berthing facility. The ship mostly berths to dedicated breasting dolphin structures, which can be single-pile flexible/rigid dolphins or multi-pile flexible/rigid dolphins. This work considers dolphin motion as massspring damped system where cantilever approximation mimics dolphin pile. Few measurements have been made for the dolphin structure, which is approximately 30 m long, 15 m immersed in the bottom and placed about 2-3 m above the sea level. The elastic material properties and pile support were identified via inverse method combined with displacement measurements of dolphin head.