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Emirates Stadium, Arsenal |
- Opened on 22nd July 2006
- 60,000 Seats
- £390million
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Description |
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Using the Emirates Stadium for Arsenal FC as an example I discuss how the use of Maths was important in designing the Structure, the Dynamic performance and the Sightlines.
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| To design the Structure, a technique called "Finite Element Analysis" was used, which involved splitting up the complex shape into lots of little rectangles, applying a simple "Young's Modulus equals Stress over Strain" relationship to all the simple geometry rectangles and then combining the results back together into the complex shape through rigid-body transformations (translations and rotations) to see how adjacent rectangles interact. |
| The discussion on Dynamics deals with what happens when humans interact with structures. One example is the so-called "Wobbly Bridge", the new Millennium Bridge over the Thames, which had to be closed to the public on its opening day because everyone walked in-step and the bridge wobbled too much (NOT one of my projects...). Research has been carried out into how structures are likely to interact with people, especially in a stadium pop-concert scenario where music can keep everyone jumping in time with the each other. The designers therefore have to model this scenario and ensure that the frequency of the stadium's vibrations are very different to the frequency of the audience jumping to prevent resonance. |
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It is obviously important that everyone can see properly when they are at a match, so lots of work goes into calculating the Sightlines of the people to make sure their view is not blocked by either the structure above (roof or upper-tier of seating) or the heads of the people in front. The equation linking seating geometry to sightline quality is shown below.
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References |
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More information on the Emirates Stadium and photos of its construction can be found on www.Arsenal.com
For more on Finite Element Analysis and the Finite Element Method see Wikipedia
The video of the Millennium Bridge wobbling is here on YouTube
The video of the Takoma Narrows Bridge collapsing is here on YouTube
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