Ansys software verifies Wimbledon roof design
An
Ansys product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Oct 28, 2009
Ansys has announced that its software was used to verify parts of the design of the retractable roof over Centre Court at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon, London.
The UK-based engineering firm Advanced Computational Analysis (ACA) used software from Ansys to conduct both static and dynamic analyses of the roof to ensure that it would perform properly under real-world loads and stresses.
Five years in development, the 17,000ft2 retractable roof is an electromechanically operated structure that includes 10 movable steel trusses that support a translucent, weather-resistant fabric canopy.
When open, the roof sections are 'parked' at opposite sides of the court.
To close the roof, the coordinated electromechanical system moves the trusses apart and, at the same time, unfolds and stretches out the fabric between the trusses, until the two sections meet in an overlapping seam above the middle of the structure.
While UK construction company Galliford Try was responsible for the overall build of the 3,000-tonne roof, the project involved many expert subcontractors.
ACA was charged with performing static and dynamic verification of the mechanisms that open and close the trusses.
Dr Martyn Lacey, founder of ACA, said: 'Capita Symonds, the principal structural engineering consultants and Street Crane Express, the motive control and automation specialists, had constructed three roof trusses for physical testing, but obviously it would be extremely time and cost-intensive to build a prototype of the entire roof.
'So to perform a virtual analysis that would provide accurate, predictive results, we turned to software from Ansys.
'Our verification process was designed to ensure that the mechanisms on each truss would perform as expected,' he added.
The Ansys software was used to carry out static and dynamic 3D analyses of the roof trusses in a virtual environment, confirming that they could withstand real-world physical loads and mechanical stresses in both moving and at-rest positions.
ACA focused special attention on the electromechanical actuators between each pair of trusses that are responsible for moving the roof.
These actuators are subject to obvious physical forces, such as the weight of the trusses, as well as more subtle forces such as the changing tension of the fabric canopy.
Ansys software supported the full range of simulation and analyses needed to verify the design of the roof system.
'By using Ansys software, we performed a timely, cost-effective verification of the roof's design so the designers could proceed with construction,' said Lacey.
The retractable roof made its debut in June 2009, when rain would have otherwise interrupted any match being played on Centre Court at Wimbledon.
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