Somewhat reminiscent of a hotel canopy I once saw that lost an altercation with a moving truck. Apparently the folks driving the truck forgot that they weren’t in the family van.
If the framing is already in place, the best you can hope for is to provide an assembly that is fairly easy to repair or replace when damage occurs. I’d vote for the corrugated metal as well, preferably over a reasonably thick sheet of plywood or other structural board product.
How about reinforcing the loading dock door jambs with tubular steel fastened to concrete slab and overhead structure, and installing heavy-duty dock bumpers to protect the portion of the wall most likely to be damaged? Properly supported miscellaneous steel angles used as corner guards could also help take the risk of damage away from the stud framing and siding.
Are we talking about a loading dock, or a truck bay. If it’s the truck bay, pretty much anything short of reinforced concrete or CMU is likely to be a problem. For a loading dock I would think two by six horizontal boarding up to about 4 feet high would absorb most abuse, and be relatively easy to repair.
I am not sure you want a solution which will cause more damage to the truck than the bay surface.
Peter, wouldn’t that depend on whether you owned the truck or the building?
Bollards can help prevent the kind of damage in Dave’s image.
I’ve seen 20 ga roof deck applied vertically to the inside and outside of truck dock walls.
You can purchase it galvanized and primed painted.
Readily available. Can be painted. Easy and cheap to replace.