Coatings for Commonwealth Stadium

Citation

(2002), "Coatings for Commonwealth Stadium", Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, Vol. 49 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/acmm.2002.12849dab.002

Coatings for Commonwealth Stadium

Coatings for Commonwealth StadiumKeywords: Coatings, Protection, Buildings, United Kingdom

Protection systems from International Protective Coatings have been used on Manchester's unique new Commonwealth Stadium.

The stadium, due to stage the summer games, Britain's largest ever sporting event, will then be further developed to become the new permanent home of Manchester City Football Club.

The show-piece venue, owned by Manchester City Council, has cost £115 million and taken contractors Laing Construction 30 months to build. It will house 38,000 people for the games, due to be opened by HM the Queen this summer and, after several more months of conversion, will be able to hold 48,000 football fans from July 2003.

Just as imaginative as the dual-use concept is the architecture used in creating the building, one of several recent large and innovative construction projects in the redevelopment of the heart of the city.

Eight satellite drums were constructed outside the perimeter of the main stands, containing spiral ramps to allow spectators access to the seating. Reaching up from the roof of each drum, 12 steel masts support a fan of steel cables to carry the roof. This is cantilevered over the seating, so that there are no columns or roof supports to hamper the view from anywhere inside the stadium. Steel forestay cables, connected close to the canopy's outer lip, transfer the weight to steel masts, from where backstay cables in turn transfer the load to the ground outside.

Around 3,000 tonnes of steel in the masts needed a heavy duty coating system with a high quality cosmetic finish. The system selected was Interzinc 52HS, a zinc-rich epoxy primer, Intercure 384, a high solids, low VOC epoxy, rapid cure micaceous iron oxide intermediate coat, and Interlac 658, a grey durable urethane modified finish coat.

Watson Steel Ltd (a division of Amec), structural design and fabrication engineers, built the masts and project manager Kevin Butterworth explained the choice of finish coat: "The architect wanted a grey finish that looked like galvanizing. There were some problems in the application of the finish coatings, but these were due to the exceptionally wet and muddy conditions on the site at the time, not the products themselves."

Intublast Protective Coatings Ltd, Bolton, applied the first two-coat epoxy system at the works. Following site welding and other remedial work the final cosmetic coat of urethane alkyd MIO was applied at ground and in situ levels.

Watson's and Intublast are regular customers of International and Laing have used International Protective Coatings on other prestige projects, including the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and the Second Severn Crossing.

The track will be used for athletics competition for just ten days. Immediately after the closing ceremony, the contractors will return to excavate a further 6m in the centre of the stadium, creating an earth slope to hold an extra tier of seating for 10,000, and exposing access to the players' entrance and changing rooms, which have already been constructed in the basement of the west stand.

To accommodate the different requirements for the venue, architects Arup Associates came up with the plan of building three of the four stands but constructing a temporary north stand 30m further back than its future permanent replacement. This allows room for the athletics track. The temporary stand is then removed to allow the permanent stand to be built and the roof joined to complete the oval.

Intentional Protective Coatings have been used on other recent construction projects in the city including the new Commonwealth Pool and Manchester United's new stands.

Details available from: International Protective Coatings. Tel: +44 (0)20 7479 6000; Fax: +44 (0)20 7479 6555; E-mail: simon.james@uk.akzonobel.com