Italian Workshop on
Shell and Spatial Structures
Upgrading the spoke wheel stadium roof concept
Massimo Majowiecki (Università IUAV di Venezia, Italy - MJWstructure, Bologna, Italy )
The roof structure of Olympic Stadium in Rome had been conceived, studied and realized between the end of 1988 and the April 1990, in total 16 months of work. This roof is the first example of spoke wheel roof structural system, that today is widely applied on many actual Stadiums around the world. Wind tunnel tests on the roof structure have been carried out at the BLWT Lab. of Western Ontario University: at that time, there have been many discussions between the designer and wind tunnel researchers about the integration of wind tunnel tests data into the design process for sub-horizontal wide span roofs.
The conceptual design and the method of wind dynamic analysis has been updated for the Yaoundé roof Stadium, now under construction. The aerodynamic behavior of Yaoundé stadium roof has been tested in London RWDI wind tunnel. Innovative and recently proposed numerical techniques have been adopted to perform dynamic analyses under wind action.
Erection sequences prescribed for roofs of these two Stadiums are both remarkable and advanced: the big lift adopted procedure for the Olympic stadium roof in Rome and the new tie down pre tensioning operation, provided for the Yaoundé stadium cable roof.
References
M. Majowiecki, Great roofing structures
M. Majowiecki, S. Pinardi, F. Berti, L. Patruno, Upgrading the spoke wheel stadium roof concept, Proceedings of the IASS Symposium 2018, Creativity in Structural Design, July 16-20, 2018, MIT, Boston, USA, Caitlin Mueller, Sigrid Adriaenssens (eds.)
Massimo Majowiecki
Massimo Majowiecki graduated from the Engineering School of Bologna in the early ’70 and became Associate Professor of Special structures in the 1978.
In 1980 Majowiecki established an office for structural engineering in Bologna (MJW structures) that created a remarkable number of projects; among them: the membrane covering “Piazza Italia” of the Fair District in Milan, the roof of Athens’s indoor stadium, the Olympic stadium of Rome and the “Delle Alpi” Stadium in Turin.
Having designed more than two hundred constructions, both in Italy and abroad, Majowiecki earned a great deal of expertise, which represents the foundation of Majowiecki’s experience–based, synthetic, conceptual design approach. Designing wide-span enclosures, from conceptual to working design phases, entails facing particularly complex structural problems, due to the scale effect of the loads involved.
Majowiecki’s experience enabled him to carry out extensive theoretical and experimental research, the results of which are nowadays shown by a great number of international congresses, as the “state–of-the–art” on the subject matter.