Stade de France, Paris, France

Michel Levesque, Expert, Scientific Dept, Vinci Construction Grands Projets, Rueil-Malmaison, France
Jean-René Martin, Engineering Dep. Mgr, Bouyges, Guyancourt, France

A complete ring of 148 private areas

was installed above the lower area
with 12 to 28 seats in each. The visibili-
ty curves provide a good coefficient
greater than 9 with a 35° maximum
slope for the upper seats. In the case of
an emergency, the stadium can be
emptied within 15 minutes.
The 119 m ´ 75 m central lawn, was
grown in the south of Paris and put in
place in October 1997.

Concrete Structures
The 180 000 m3 of reinforced concrete
structures were cast within 15 months
for a total construction schedule of 31
months (May 1995 to November 1997).
The structure is founded on 15 m-long
Fig. 1: Aerial view of stadium roof piles and barrettes. The arena is 10 m-
deep, from parvis level, with 4 m above
natural ground. 800 000 m3 of earth-
Introduction ary with ticket control entrances. The works were dumped, 250 000 m3 of
stadium’s facade is a pseudo ellipse which were used as fill for the parvis.
At the end of December 1993, in view of with 18 monumental stairways, shaped
the upcoming July 1998 World Football as a boat stern and covered on the out- The stand structures are composed of 18
Cup, France, the host country began the side by a projecting flat roof supported blocks of 4 main frames at a 14 m step
tender process for the construction of a by 18 steel columns and stays (Fig. 2). (42 m between expansion joints). The
great stadium in the north of Paris. An interesting element of the stadium, main frame is a huge vertical wall, 1.1 m-
is the first row of 25 000 seats placed wide, 5 to 6 m-long, 41 m-high. In be-
This contract was one amongst eight-
on a movable device, set over the run- tween, the space is divided in two by sec-
een others, awarded in October 1994
ning tracks. This provides a good view ondary rack beams supporting the pre-
by Prime Minister Balladur. The con-
of sporting events and the movable fabricated inverted L beam of the seats.
tract was signed in April 1995 by the
device can shift 15 m back to uncover
French Government granting the suc- Two specific subjects were developed
the running tracks and jumping equip-
cessful consortium to finance, design, for the analysis of concrete structures.
ment for athletic events.
build and operate the 80 000-seat sta-
dium for thirty years at La Plaine St- Three parking areas for up to 4400 cars
Dynamic Actions of Spectators on
Denis, on land between the St-Denis are located under the western, northern
Stand Structures
canal and the A1 expressway. and eastern parvis surface. Non-sporting
facilities are also provided, including a For one seat surface of 500 ´ 750 mm
The total estimated cost of the project
2000 m2 multipurpose hall, 4500 m2 of of- occupied by a 75 daN mean spectator,
was 394 million USD, of which 259 mil-
fice and merchant space and a 320-seat the statical dead weight of the stand is
lion USD was devoted to the construc-
panoramic restaurant located on the 200 daN/m2.
tion. Construction was completed on
west side of the upper stand level. The
schedule in October 1997 and in July To take into account the dynamic ef-
total floor surface is about 250 000 m2.
1998, the World Football Cup took fect of the spectators, the French rule
place in the splendour of the greatest NFP 06001 recommended an equiva-
sports stadium in France (Fig. 1). lent static effort of 600 daN/m2.
Stands
There is no impulse spectrum for crowd
The 80 000 seats are located over 3 effect and only Canadian rules give fre-
Project Description stands: quencies between 1.5 and 3.0 Hz.
The stadium is located at the centre of – 25 000-seat movable lower ring When measured in situ during compe-
a rectangular, horizontal parvis, 400 m – 30 000-seat medium stand tition, the maximum frequency for a
´ 390 m, and is equipped at its bound- – 25 000-seat variable upper ring. certain amount of spectators (under

242 Outstanding Structural Awards Structural Engineering International 4/2002

a maximum number of 250, which
is about 17 t) cannot be greater than
2.8 Hz.
Calculations have been made for the
stairs with a static effort of 200 daN/m2
plus a rectangular time history impulse
signal of 200 daN/m2 applied over the
area occupied by 250 spectators. The
rectangular signal was imposed during
variable time sequences between 0.33
to 1.0 s. Out of these limit spectators
are no more in phase when jumping.
Such a rectangular signal, similar to
the shock of a hammer on an anvil, has
been smoothed to take into account
the real elastic impact and properties
of human bodies impulse with shoes.
A modal analysis was done for each of
the concrete structures between the
expansion joints. General flexion and
torsion modes have not been retained Fig. 2: Monumental stairs
because they cannot be simulated by
the impulse signal representative of
spectators. Finally, the conclusions for these con- The roof, made of 5982 t of steel in a
crete structure studies are as follows: monolithic structure, 5 m-deep, at the
Secondary modes of elements of the centre part, is supported by 18 steel
– the frequencies that simulate the
concrete structures have been identi- columns, totalling 1900 t, regularly
roof do not affect the stands and recip-
fied with frequency of about 7 Hz. As spaced on the stadium’s facade. The
rocally
it is not possible to realise an impulse roof is suspended at the top of each
– the horizontal reaction of the roof,
signal representative of crowding spec- column by 2 ´ 4 stays of 55 strands T15
due to wind and temperature load-
tators at a frequency of 7 Hz, the im- and counterbalanced by 2 ´ 2 vertical
ing, on the concrete structures are
pulse differential sequences are set to stays of 31 strands T15 on the external
weakly modified by their own gener-
a multiple of the value of the sec- side. The stays total 400 t (Fig. 3).
ated movements
ondary frequencies identified, so as to
– stand deformations are imposed to The oval-shaped dimensions are 326 m
stimulate the fundamental frequency
the columns of the roof without any and 283 m for a 62 000 m2 surface with
of the structure of harmonics.
significant efforts especially effects a hollow central void, 161 m by 101 m.
of creep and earth pressure.
With an acceleration limited to 0.1 G, From the steel columns’ axis, the exter-
this study demonstrates that it was The quasi freedom of both structures nal cantilever part is a constant 25 m
necessary to redesign some secondary versus the other allowed the study all around and the internal cantilever
elements when compared to a design team to conduct the two studies of the varies from 55 to 65 m, with a glass
with 600 daN/m2 of the Norme Française roof and the concrete separately with- canopy of 20 m. The roof is situated
P (NFP) rule. This load has been taken out any problem of interactions and over the lawn level and 4 to 11 m
into consideration for the design of the time consuming computations. above the upper seats.
main structural members.
The internal structure is made of 36
main beams, 3.5 m-deep, where stays
Analysis of Potential Coupling The Roof are anchored, trussed by secondary
Static Analysis. A first analysis was truss beams at a grid of 5 m. The roof is
The roof of the Stade de France is a
made of the roof structure with retain- covered in the rear by bottom and up-
major architectural component due to
ing concrete structures modelled as per cladding and 11 000 m2 of glass
its design, which was conceived more
springs coupled with each other. It has canopy was installed along the internal
as a sculpture rather than a standard
shown that even doubling or dividing side ring.
functional cover for spectators.
by two, the spring stiffness modulus
The main beams at the anchoring
does not change the horizontal reac- The Architect’s vision was a flat disc
point of the upper stays are stiffened
tions of the roof columns upon a con- pierced by 18 thin javelins or needles
using 2 rings of trusses, one on the ex-
crete sustaining structure by more without any visible supporting columns
ternal side and one made of a squared
than 15%. sustaining the roof.
beam (internal gallery) with equip-
Dynamic Analysis. Each of the 18 con- The technical challenge dictated that ment space and a counterweight con-
crete stand structures (model of 1000 the 62 000 m2 structure for only 8390 t crete block.
nodes each) were replaced by a simpli- of structural steel developed this vi-
fied model of 100 beam elements, sion, leading to the visual absence of
Roof Studies
loaded by distributed mass to be with- sustaining structures which has created
in the 10% response for the first nine this enigmatic impression to the non- The time schedule for the studies and
frequencies. experienced eye. the erection was as follows:

Structural Engineering International 4/2002 Outstanding Structural Awards 243

 forces. No solution was found to re-
duce wind forces but angulation about
± 5° did not change the general result
of effort on this ‘wing’.
Consequently, the second 1/200 model
of the whole stadium was tested in an
atmospheric wind tunnel with a rigid
plexi-glass roof model at rest regula-
tion. The model was equipped, over a
little more than a quarter of the roof,
with 191 pressure gauges connected to
transducers numbered at 200 Hz rate
over 46 seconds. 18 wing directions
were tested. Each run gave about 2 bil-
lion values to sort, to provide the de-
sign office charts of pressure or local
maximum wind pressure which varies
from 20 to 300 daN/m2 of depression
and 15 to 120 daN/m2 of over pressure.
The pressure chart was sorted using
Fig. 3: Roof edge with vertical stays
the transfer coefficients matrix, calcu-
lated by the design office for each ele-
ment where pressure was measured on
From January to March 1995: that the vertical stays will always stay
the scale model for some 32 chosen el-
– preliminary project definition and in traction.
ements of the roof such as stays, main
pre-design of roof structure
beams or gallery beams.
– wind studies at a laboratory in
Nantes. 3D Model of Steel Structure
From April to September 1995:
The model used for computation of
References
– complete detailed preliminary defin-
the steel structure was run on a pro-
ition of the structure and main defin- [1] FLAMAND, O.; BARRER, C.; GERMAIN,
gram, which was boosted by post-pro- E.; BOURCIER, P.; BIETRY, J. Fatigue Calcu-
ition of steel elements ready for a
cessing programs for the combination lation on the Roof Sustaining Cables of the Great
European tender including construc-
of factored load and cumulative con- Stadium in Paris. CSTB, Nantes, France. Euro-
tion phases.
struction phases. The stand’s concrete dyn 96, Florence, 6/7 June, Florence, Italy, 1996.
From September 1995 to July 1996: structures, that horizontally support [2] LEVESQUE, M.; MARTIN, J.R.; HABLOT,
– detailed studies. the columns at two levels, were intro- J.M.; BIETRY, J.; FAURE, J.; MAZAHERI, D.
duced in the model for a good compu- Le Stade de France. Revue Française de Génie
In July 1996: Civil, Paris, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1997.
tation of the efforts under horizontal
– first delivery of prefabricated ele-
forces such as wind or temperature. [3] Stade de France. Travaux, No. 735, Paris,
ments on site.
October, 1997.
25 000 beams were modelled among
This tight time schedule was necessary
which 5000 were for the concrete sup-
to ensure that the roof would be fully
porting structures. Other more simple
erected in July 1997. SEI Data Block
models were used such as the ANSIS
code model for studies of modal analy- Owner:
sis or finite element of stay anchoring Consortium Stade de France, Paris
Stability of Roof area.
Architect:
Stability under uplift wind pressure is Macary, Zublena/Regembal,
one of the major problems with such a Constantini, France
suspended roof. The wind tunnel test
Wind Loading
Concrete structure, design offices:
performed on a rigid 1/200 scale model Bouygues, Guyancourt, Vinci Rueil-
Wind is the governing load for the roof
of the building and roof, provided in- Malmaison
as well as a static or dynamic force or
formation on wind pressure chart to be
for the fatigue of stays, or stability. Roof structure:
applied on the extrados and intrados.
- INGEROP SEER, Clermont-Ferrand
As the total dead weight of the struc- Reference wind speed U ref. = 26 m/s
ture was not enough to counterbalance (50-year return)was considered for the Main contractors:
wind pressure, concrete blocks, 2 to 8 t service Limit State Calculation with a Bouygues Guyancourt, Dumez-GTM,
per linear metre were placed in the roughness parameter Zo = 0.3 accord- SGE (Vinci, Rueil-Malmaison)
gallery. ing to Eurocode 1, Part 2.4 (EUR 95).
Steel (t): 10 000
This counterweight was calculated at A first 1/25 model of a cross section of
Ultimate Limit State, with a Service the roof and stand was placed on a Concrete (m3): 180 000
Limit State wind increase by 1.5 and scale in the climatic wind tunnel to test Total cost (USD millions): 394
with favourable permanent load fac- the effect of trailing edge angulation,
Service date: January 1998
tored by 0.9, in order to demonstrate and possible devices to reduce wind

244 Outstanding Structural Awards Structural Engineering International 4/2002