JCU team ensures stadium roof safety

JCU’s Cyclone Testing Station has won the contract to be the specialist wind engineering consultancy for the project.

CTS Director Dr David Henderson said the JCU team would meet with lead designer Cox Architecture and structural engineers Arup early in the new year.

“We’ll see the scope of the project then, but typically we would build a scale model of the stadium, rig it with sensors and measure the pressures produced by different wind speeds in our wind tunnel.”

Dr Henderson said the appealing design of the stadium roof and the position of Townsville in a cyclone zone made the project an interesting one.

“It’s not the standard, flat cantilevered roof typical on most regional stadiums. It’s a more complex roof and so there’s more complex issues. It has to be cyclone resistant, but we don’t want to simply use thick steel beams everywhere so that it becomes very expensive and you lose the nice slender lines you have now.”

Dr Henderson said the project would be a fantastic opportunity and great experience for PhD students working at the CTS.