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A number of structural engineering masterstrokes were needed before the first match could kick off in the recently completed Allianz Arena: Construction of the most cutting-edge football stadium in Europe included a number of pioneering techniques, as reflected in the technical installations supplied by Siemens Elin. The entire project was planned using EPLAN CAD workstations, and took around six man years to complete.
 With a build time of just under three years, one of the most advanced football stadiums in Central Europe was officially opened in Munich at the end of May. The Allianz Arena, the brainchild of Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, seats some 66,000 spectators in three tiers. It also houses a host of additional features such as a crèche, offices and conference rooms, as well as catering and retail facilities. The stadium’s multi-storey car park is thought to be the largest in Europe, with spaces for around 11,000 cars.
The building features a number of architectural highlights. Take the roof, for example, which is the largest foil panel roof in the world. It is made up of a total of 2,874 transparent air cushions, each measuring around 35 square meters. They are filled with air, and large fan units ensure that the air is continually replenished and that the pressure inside each cushion is maintained. A total of 12 pressure cells provide the data for the required air supply. The entire outer skin may be illuminated with a total of 4,200 different colored lights, so that the building looks like a giant Chinese lantern from a distance.
All the electrical equipment from a single source
The technical infrastructure inside the building is equally impressive. VA Tech Elin was responsible for the entire technical installation. Founded almost a century ago in Linz and Vienna, this company is now a global player specializing in electromechanical and electronic plant, systems and services for industrial, buildings and local government infrastructure. Its areas of expertise include industrial installations, structural engineering, facility management, power supply, automation, drive technology and traction technology. Last year, the 460-strong workforce was taken over by Siemens, and the company was renamed Siemens Elin.
The range of services provided by VA Tech Elin for the Allianz Arena and car park included the entire heavy and weak current power distribution systems, plus all the lighting, and the flood-lighting. The company also designed and installed the fire alarm system, the access control system, the traffic guidance system with barriers and traffic lights, the ticketing, the telephone and IT distribution systems, the video monitoring system including police control, and the entire heating/air-conditioning/ventilation/sanitary and distribution systems. This was a vast project, as reflected by the impressive volume of materials used: Some 460 km of heavy current cables and 140 km of weak current cables were used in the building, along with 4200 switches, sockets and indicators, 4,600 lights for the interior, the aforementioned 4,200 lights for the outer skin, and an incredible 220 floodlights.
250 control cabinets and 5000 data points
The low-voltage power distribution system in the stadium is based on two main distributors each with 26 fields, plus a further 130 sub-distributors. Around 50 additional sub-distributors are installed in the catering facilities, a further 32 sub-distributors for the heating, air-conditioning, ventilation and sanitary systems, and around 110 sub-distributors for power supply to the boxes and fan shops. The car park requires a further two low-voltage main distributors each with four fields. Sub-distribution is provided by some 34 distributors, with a further seven sub-distributors in the heating/air-conditioning/ventilation/sanitary systems. In total, the installation necessitated some 250 control cabinets and distributors, almost all of which were produced by VA Tech Elin at its own plant in Linz.
The automation systems used at the Allianz Arena boast similarly impressive dimensions. The information to be processed is supplied by around 5,000 data points. The measuring and control system for the building installations handle all associated open- and closed-loop control tasks. It also generates the data for monitoring the heating/air-conditioning/ventilation/sanitary equipment and for the monitoring systems of auxiliary systems such as elevators or barriers. For the stadium itself and the esplanade leading to stadium from the car park, all functions are controlled by around 26 PLCs. A further 12 PLCs were required for the car park. There are also some 400 frequency converters to control, the majority of them in the heating/air-conditioning and fan systems. As well as necessitating a wealth of expertise, a project of this magnitude also demands a powerful project planning tool. Since the dawn of the CAD era in 1987, Tech Elin has used the engineering tool EPLAN. Until fairly recently, the company was still using Version 5.40, but has since upgraded to the more recent EPLAN variant 5.70. The company owns more than 100 licenses in total.
Over 350 EPLAN projects
The entire Allianz Arena project was handled using EPLAN, and all the wiring schematics were produced at EPLAN workstations, with automatic evaluation of terminal diagrams, cable lists and equipment lists. VA Tech Elin staff from two project planning departments spent around 18 months working at four CAD workstations before the entire project planning was complete. This translates into approximately six man years.
Engineer Richard Schropp, who was extensively involved in the project at VA Tech Elin, proclaims himself satisfied with the EPLAN software. “We did not experience any inconsistencies, data losses or system crashes whatsoever during the handling of more than 350 EPLAN projects between two project planning departments, the cabinet production plant and the construction site". This is an impressive achievement, especially as each of the 350 plus EPLAN projects spanned around 150 pages, comprised of automatically generated pages as well as created data. The total page count is therefore in excess of 50,000.
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