The Steel Roof of the New Lille Stadium: Instability Phenomenon in Cover-Plates of Tension Plates. Issue 3 (2nd July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: de Ville de Goyet, Vincent; Seret, Sebastien; Duchêne, Yves; Propson, Arnaud; Gens, Frédéric
• Is Part Of: Structural engineering international. Volume 30:Issue 3(2020)
• Page Start: 344
• Page End: 354
• Publication Date: 2020-07-02
• Subjects: stadium roof -- instability -- finite element model -- steel cover-plates -- tension joints -- beams; Structural engineering -- Periodicals; 624.1
• DOI: 10.1080/10168664.2020.1738313
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1016-8664

Abstract

Abstract: The steel roof of the Pierre Mauroy Stadium in Lille (France) is supported by two mega-trusses, each 200 m long and 16 m high. The main design challenge was to propose a technique to assemble the elements of the mega-trusses with minimum welding on site to save time, with a limited number of bolts for aesthetic reasons. The members of the compression chords were assembled using full contact and those of the tension chords were joined with cover-plates and a single pin instead of multiple bolts. During erection of the mega-trusses, an unknown instability phenomenon appeared on the cover-plates used only to transmit tension forces. The lifting operations were stopped immediately to maintain safety. After verifications, it was concluded that the final design based on Eurocodes was correct for both the service conditions and construction stages. Large parametric studies with nonlinear analyses were conducted to understand the origin of this behavior. Ignoring this phenomenon would be impossible even if the tension forces were smaller for the service life. Thus, new design requirements were defined to consider the phenomenon and reinforcement was added to some cover-plates to secure the structure. This article presents the observed phenomenon, the main numerical simulations to understand the origin of the instability, and the design requirements to verify the safety of this type of joint.