Application of ConSteel in design of UTE Stadium

F. Papp
Department of Structural Engineering, BUTE, Budapest, Hungary

Keywords: steel structures, computer aided design

ABSTRACT: As the first step of the Hungarian Stadium Program the old buildings as well as the arena of
UTE Stadium were rebuilt. The eighty percent of the arena has been covered by new steel structure. The
structural solution rightly acknowledged in both of aesthetic and engineering points of view. This paper describes the theoretical and practical background of design using the ConSteel integrated structural design
program in the Steel Structural Design Office of the KSZ Ltd. The structure was fabricated in the new
CNC workshop, which was implemented by the company in 2000.

INTRODUCTION

The old concrete stand was build decades ago (see

Figure 1.). The new geodesic measurement showed
that the ground of the stand is not regular: one side is
shorter with 2 meters than the opposite side. This
fact and some financial conditions leaded to the
building strategy, where firstly the four sides, later
the four at first sight uniform - corner structures
were designed and built as independent structures.
The dramatically short design time as well as the
geometrically different corners required automatic
structural design technology. The designers applied
the ConSteel (2002) integrated steel structure design program. This paper introduces this design system by means of the new steel structure of the UTE
Stadium (see Figure 2).

Figure 1. The old structure (concrete stand).

Figure 2. The new structure (steel roof).

MAIN FRAME

The governing members in the uniform side structures are the main frames (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. The main frame.

In the first step of the design the governing form of

the main frame was determined. Many solutions
(truss structure, welded section frame, and so on)
were examined and compared in cost. The solution
of light truss and internal column locate in the stand
seemed to be the cheapest solution, but it had to be
rejected: the fans of the team did not wanted see any
column within the stand. However, the evolution of
the structural form is illustrated in Figure 4.

2.1 Structural details

After the architectural design of the main frame, the
next step was the optimal structural design. The
governing conditions were the following:

the distances between main frames are 8,3 meters,

the covering system is a Hsch-donga system,
the second ground point should be located within
4,5 meters band.

However, the beam was designed as tapered monosymmetric member, where the upper flange is a
cold-formed profile, which can accept covering
donga plates (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. Special beam shape with closely located

stiffeners to support the donga system.

Figure 4. Evolution of the form of the main frame.

The starting model was the simply fix and prismatic

column with tapered cantilever. This version had to
be rejected because the moment at the ground resulted too expensive base. To avoid the large base
structure, in the next version the column was supported by a sloped bar. By this solution the column
got the required stiffness, but the beam showed excessive deflection. To avoid the large beam deformation, it had to be hanged up by tension system (see the green bars in Figure 4). This was the
evaluation of the format of the frame. The detailed
analyses showed that the tension system should be
a tension-compression beam-column system, because of the considerable wind up effect.

The thin web of the beam should be stiffened relatively closely to keep the cross-section shape, which
is deformed by the local effect of the donga. However, the design of tapered member with Class 4
cross-sections required advanced design tool. The
column was also designed as tapered member with
no stiffened Class 4 web plate. This type of member
should have considerable end-stiffeners as it is
shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Column end with considerable endstiffener to encourage the thin web plate.

The back cantilever had considerable effects; therefore it was designed as tapered member starting with
the height of the beam. The special beam flange was
reduced gradually as far as the end plate connection
between the beam and the cantilever. The tensioncompression member system consists of sloped bars
and it was designed from hot-rolled HEA shapes
with shear bolted connections. To reduce the effect
of the self-weight of the slender sloped members,
tension bars were applied around the minor axis (see
Figure 7.).

2.3 Analysis of tapered beam

To verify the ConSteel approach of tapered members, let us consider the test beam published by
Andrade & Camotim (2002) and illustrated in Figure
9.
M

8000
200-10
400(200)-6

E=210 GPa
=0.3

t
c
a
x
e
.
r
c

m
N
k
4
.
4
8
1

MMMM

200-10

Figure 9. Andrade & Camotim (2002) tapered beam

Figure 7. Sheared-bolt connection of the upper tensioned stiffener member.

Both the column and the base points of the stiffener

system were connected to the ground by encourage
bolts fixed in the head of the concrete base. The base
head are fixed to the drilled concrete piles.

The exact theoretical solution for the elastic critical

moment (Mcr) was compared to the result of the
ConSteel solution (see Figure 10).

M cr .exact
M cr .ConSteel
1.05

2.2 Modelling
The main frame was modelled by the ConSteel
structural design program. The 3D model was composed of thin-walled beam-column finite elements.
The model was supported laterally in the points
where the members of the wind-bracing system connect to the frame. At these points of the beam the rotations about the member axis are also restricted
since the bottom flange are stiffened by sloped bars.
In the ConSteel system the tapered members are
modelled approximately by a set of prismatic beamcolumn elements with eccentricity, as it is illustrated
in Figure 8.

1.0

16

32

top-steel
Figure 10. Simulation of LTB in the ConSteel system
using n=32 finite elements.

eccentricity
Figure 8. Modelling tapered member by a set of eccentric prismatic finite elements.

The conclusion of the above test was that the n=8

finite elements gave reasonable result for the lateraltorsional buckling of the tapered beam. At n=16 the
error of the solution was less than 1%.

2.4 Analysis

servative but allows automatic structural design

procedure.

Using the above tapered member modelling, the 3D

model of the main frame was built up in the ConSteel system (see Figure 11.).

Mode 1

Mode 2

Mode 3

Mode 4

Figure 12. 3D Buckling modes of the main frame.

2.5 Structural design

Figure 11. 3D model of the main frame by ConSteel
User Interface.

The ConSteel program is an integrated system with

the following main components:

CAD modelling
Analysis (first order, second order, elastic stability, dynamic)
Structural design following Eurocode 3

The 3D stability analysis allows the standard structural design being fully automatic (Papp & Ivnyi
2002), because the procedure does not need the interaction of the user defining the member restraints
for the resistance of member stability. Figure 12.
shows the result (3D buckling modes) of the stability
analysis of the main frame to wind up effect. Mode 1
indicates the buckling of the upper stiffener member
about its minor axis. Mode 2 shows the buckling of
the same member, but about its major axis and with
parallel buckling of other stiffener members. Mode 3
indicates the buckling of the other stiffener members. Mode 4 shows the buckling of these members
but about their major axes and with the slight torsional buckling of the tapered column. It is important to mention that the first three buckling modes
had almost the same eigenvalue (critical load factor).
Mode 4 was larger by 70%. The study of the buckling modes leaded to the conclusion that the member
slenderness specified by Eurocode 3 might be evaluated with the first eigenvalue. This concept is con-

The full analysis provided a complex database for

the standard structural design according to Eurocode
3. The main points of the design were the following:

cross-section resistances,
member stabilities,
connection resistances.

Figure 13 shows the colour-mapped resistances of

the main frame to the relevant load combinations.
The automatically generated data table showed by

Figure 13. Colour-mapped resistances by Eurocode 3.

Figure 14 allowed the designers to analyse the reasons of the given resistances. The left hand side
data-block shows the design effects on the relevant
cross-sections, the right hand side data-block gives
the parameters of the design equations relating to the

The final step of the structural design was the design

of connections. The ConSteel system has a powerful
JOINT module, which was developed in a cooperation with the Czech FINE software firm. The JOINT
follows the component method established by the
Eurocode 3 (see Figure 16). The JOINT is integrated
into the ConSteel analysis, where a complex joint
object can be generated as an

individual joint object, which is generated within

the JOINT tool,
structural joint object, which is automatically
generated from the actual structural model.

Figure 14. Diagnostic data table for cross-section and

member resistances according to Eurocode 3.

relevant resistances. Details of design within the

relevant cross-section can be examined by the user:
Figure 15 shows the diagnostic table with the column cross-section located just below the point where
the sloped member supports the column (Papp,
Ivnyi & Jrmai 2001).

Figure 16. The integrated ConSteel/JOINT module

design of column base.

THE CORNERS

The four corners were designed and built in the second building phase, when the four sides were have
been ready (see Figure 17).

Figure 15. Design data table for cross-section according to Eurocode 3.

The 2D graphics indicates the effective cross-section

model of the Class 4 column shape (the middle part
of the web is a non-effective zone). However, using
the automatically generated design diagnostic tables,
user may find the optimal configuration of the structure in some minutes. We have to emphasis, that the
program does not replace the engineering background but urges the engineer to understand the behaviour of the structure much deeper than those design tools, which follows the conservative design
techniques.

Figure 17. One of the four independent corner structures.

Since the sides followed the old concrete structure

(stand), they formed irregular rectangular. However,
the four corner grounds were unique, respectively.

The architectural concept of the corners was based

on the idea illustrated in Figure 18.
Side B

400 m2 free
area

Side A

Figure 19. 3D beam-column model of the corner.

last main frame

corner frame
flat roof connection
tension bar
base
Figure 18. Concept of the four independent corner.

The distances between the last frames of the sides

and the corner frame are changeable, because the
sides and the corners are not connected to each other
except the flat covering plates. By this concept the
corners can be really independent structures. However, a corner structure is composed of four main
frames, where two of them is turned about its vertical axis by 90 degree. The four beams connected
to each other at their ends compose a rectangular
area without any internal columns (it was a precondition for the design). The roof structure was
built up with one double and four single light
trusses. The roof creases in the line of the double
truss giving the needed slope for the two triangular
roof areas.

Figure 20. Truss-beam joint close to shear centre.

which is put into a CHS profile that is welded centrically into the web closely to the shear centre. Inside the profile special rectangular bars fix the truss
ends against the axial displacements but allow the
rotations. The effect of the covering to the stiffness
was neglected in the model.
The global elastic stability analysis showed the relevant buckling modes of the model. Figure 21 shows
the first buckling mode, which indicates the torsional rotation of the columns with the lateral torsional buckling of the beams.

3.1 Modelling and analysis

The corner structures were modelled in the ConSteel
system (see Figure 19). The two main points of the
columns had to be connected by a tension bar to
provide stiffness for the structure against crushing.
The light trusses were modelled by tensioncompression bars, which distribute the roof load between the main beams. The beams had to be loaded
in the shear centre to avoid the excessive torsion of
the soft open shape. This condition was achieved
by a special truss-beam joint, which is illustrated in
Figure 20. The truss ends in hot-rolled HEA profile,

Figure 21. First global buckling mode of the model.

Because the higher eigenvalues were close to this

value, the first critical load factor was accepted as
the generalised value for the critical forces. The
automatic design provided a sufficient tool for the
designers to find the optimal configurations of the
four different corners, respectively.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The design of the new steel structural roof system of
the UTE Stadium had more irregular conditions,
which would made the design too difficult using the
traditional design technologies. The ConSteel integrated steel structural design system provided an
adequate tool for the designers to satisfy the irregular conditions in the prescribed building time and
cost. The main advantages of the design tool are the
following:

Easy beam-column modelling on the advanced

CAD User Interface.
Advanced analysis for global 3D stability analysis including the warping effects.
Application of the unified object-oriented crosssection definitions.
Automatic and standard design procedure supporting by advanced diagnostics of the design
equations.

REFERENCES
ConSteel 2002, ConSteel concurrent steel structural design program, User Manual, KSZ Ltd.
2002, Budapest, Hungary
Andrade & Camotim 2002, Lateral-Torsional stability behaviour of arbitrary singly symmetric tapered steel beams: a Variational formulation, EuroSteel 2002, Proceedings, pp. 107-118, Coimbra,
Portugal
Papp & Ivnyi 1998, Steel CAD. Computer aided
design of steel structures, textbook in Hungarian,
ISBN 963 420 590 9, Megyetemi Kiad, Budapest
Papp & Ivnyi 2002, Developments in structural
design of beam-columns: a review from CAD point
of view, SDSS 2002 Proceedings, pp. 13-22, Budapest, Hungary
Papp, Ivnyi & Jrmai 2001, Unified objectoriented definition of thin-walled steel beam-column
cross-sections, Computers & Structures 79 (2001),
pp. 839-852

The rebuilt UTE Stadium at sunshine and at night(KSZ Ltd.)