Precast Grandstand Elements- Debrecen Stadium, Hungary

The use of BarChip Fibers Helped Reduce Element Thickness From 22cm to 12cm

Located in the North East Region of Hungary, Debrecen is the second largest Hungarian city behind the capital Budapest. Debrecen VSC has been the most successful Hungarian football team since 2000, winning six national titles and reaching the group stages of the UEFA League. In 2013 construction began on a new home stadium for Debrecen VSC. When completed, the 20,020 capacity stadium will be the second largest stadium in Hungary.

The design of the stadium was made very difficult by a limited budget and a short construction time. As a result the only construction option was to develop precast elements that could meet design demands. The load bearing structure of the stadium consists of precast pinned frames with 7.5m long tribune and ribbed floor elements. The grandstand consists of more than 400 different types of elements with a total of 11,000m2 surface.

Originally, the grandstand was designed with a mild reinforcement and with a 22cm thick slab under the stairs. However, the weight and cost of this solution proved unworkable. The solution was to use prestressed strands in combination with synthetic fiber reinforcement. This design reduced slab thickness to 12cm and eliminated using stirrups, reducing labour time during production of the precast elements.

The University of Budapest conducted testing on 11 types of fiber reinforcement in accordance with RILEM TC 162-TDF and JSCE SF-4. Steel fiber options were eliminated due to concerns over corrosion. At the end of testing BarChip structural synthetic fibers delivered a performance level approximately twice that of the next best fiber and was subsequently specified on the project.

6 real size elements were made and tested and Finite Element Analysis was used to optimise the final dosage at 4kg/m3 of BarChip structural synthetic fiber.

The data in this blog post is sourced from the testing reports published by The University of Budapest in the paper “Precast, Prestressed Grandstand of PFRC in Stadium, Hungary.”