Technology: St. Pölten Ice Rink - Frame, Physics, Installations
When designing a new ice-skating rink for St. Pölten in Austria, the spectre of Bad Reichenhall loomed large. In 2006, in that southern German spa town, the roof of the local ice rink collapsed killing 15 and injuring 34. Stefan Winter, Professor at the Technical University of Munich, who was involved in the investigation of the causes, points out, however, that laminated timber structures built according to today´s standards bear no relation to the simple wood frame used in Bad Reichenhall in the early 1970s. There the collapse had been caused by a combination of factors, among them a basically unsuitable load-bearing system which had not been structurally checked beforehand, poor workmanship and lack of maintenance. The ice rink in St. Pölten was built from glued laminated timber girders made from cost-effective softwood according to the requirements of EN 386. The design is in line with utility class 3, i.e. the permissible stresses were reduced by 15 % to provide a safety buffer in the case of fluctuations in environmental humidity and therefore also in component humidity. Air temperature, humidity and the surface temperature of the ice had to be carefully balanced, which made efficient building systems especially important.
