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BC Place Stadium, Vancouver, Canada

The BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, Canada, was renovated until the end of 2011. Part of the renovation consisted of replacing the air pillow roof by a “sliding” roof made of air pillows.

The construction opens within twenty minutes and then has an opening of 120m x 85m, i.e. the same size as the pitch of the stadium. elnic provided several air machine systems to support the air inside the new stadium roof and connected them on site.

The closed roof is an air cushion roof and must be continuously supplied with air. Before the roof is opened, the elnic eluft machines draw the air out of the pillows, so the membrane can be pulled together more quickly.

bcfaltung
1 x eluft 1400 Support air supply with external shut-off valve to continuously supply the pillows with dried air and to maintain the required pressure the pillows
2 x Deflation Unit Blower units with valves (suction) for rapid deflation of the pillow before opening / folding of the roof
2 x Inflation Unit Blower units with valves (filling) for rapid refilling of the cushions after the closing of the roof and an additional redundancy blower to maintain the pressure in case of error
4 x weather stations For wind and rain
1 x master control with touch display and potential-free interface for remote control and messages to operate the equipment, for coordination of the process during filling and deflating, for monitoring the systems, to verify if the system and the cushion pressure is functioning correctly using an additional second pressure sensor, monitoring the cushion pressure in each section separately (36 pressure switches)

All units are made for 60Hz network and can be delivered with UL certificate.

Cushion volume 4500 m³
Air capacity of the fan units Each max. 11,000m³/h
Deflation and inflation process up to nominal pressure Less than 20 minutes
Pressure increase from 500Pa to 1000Pa Approx. 6 minutes
BC Container
1: 500 Pa Normal pressure
2: 1000 Pa In case of wind / partial snow load
3: 2000 Pa In case of increased snow load
bcfaltungabsaugung


In order to test the design, a prototype was constructed in the United States, a strip of the oval roof. This mock-up was set up near Seattle to test whether the design will work. The textile roof has to emerge and then inflate. Then emptied again bydrawing out the air. The membranes are again retracted and stowed away in the middle of the roof. Wind and rain influences were examined here. elnic developed and manufactured the air machines for this roof. They control the inflation, deflationand the conditioning of the pillow.