Everyone knows Wimbledon as the worlds most premier championship and the venue of the London 2012 Olympic games. But today it is also a site of a one of a kind motion controlled application, the retractable roof. It is an innovative piece of engineering design and that’s why it intrests me. This design had to be designed so precisely and carefully as there was 0 scope for error at a venue like this for a cause like that.
The design
It is one of a kind because it does not use the conventional hydraulic systems which use hydraulic oil because sometimes that fails to work due to various reasons such as oil leaks or the wrong oil being used. Rather than that, it employs all electronic actuation to control the roof going in and out.
Due to having no hydraulic systems in it and being solely based on electronic functioning. There are 3 key advantages this bridge has to offer.
- No Noise while operating. Noise could disturb the players and annoy the crowd, therefore this becomes a key advantage
- No Leakage, this point need not be explained. Visualize Rafa Nadal on game point vs. Djokovic and oil starts leaking from the bridge. Eww. Buzzkill.
- Total Precision, lower costs in the long run. However the initial set up costs would’ve been more expensive than using a conventional hydraulic jack system. But here, at Wimbledon, I guess they’d rather spend more than having a breakdown during a match.
The design for the roof has no president as such. It is incredibly complex design due to its 17000 square feet of fabric covering and massive steel trusses and other structural factors (which I couldn’t understand cause im not an engineer, YET.) The roof is controlled via a panel, which looks something like this:
As it is custom made specifically for the roof, it can be configured to match any new specification or requirement, for example sunshade mode or championship modes(get to them later) which have been configured to the system by Moog (The developers of the roof). An advantage of this is that the overall functionality of the roof keeps increasing, for example, it was designed keeping the rain factor in mind, later Moog figured that it could be a solution to the problem of the suns glare to provide shading to different stands and also the tennis court as a whole.
The Roof offers 4 modes due to its innovative adaptability feature. The press of just ONE button activates each of these unique modes. People like you and I could also operate this major roof at the grandest stage of them all.
1) Move To Park Position
2) Move to Championship Mode
3) Deploy & Close Roof
4) Sunshade Mode (Mentioned earlie and shown below)
Consumer Response:
This roof has really provided tennis fans like myself 3 key advantages:
No weather delays ever again,
An enhanced spectator experience
Assured t.v. Coverage.
“The customers are now very happy with this, actually they were, all along”
– John Biggin, SCX Special Projects.
“I think after spending a little more time and certainly a lot more money, we have finally got a roof that is excellent for the environment and works to best of the games needs and therefore is very successful.”
– Ian Bartlett, Moog.
This design is definitely a technological achievement and a state of the art design. Also it is another example of how technology is penetrating into the sport market for Kaizen*
*Kaizen is Japanese process of continuous improvement.
Bibliography:
http://www.espn.co.uk/tennis/sport/story/203847.html
http://www.ideasinmotioncontrol.com/2009/08/wimbledon-moogs-design-is-moving-on-up.html#.UkopSmSKJco
good roof but was amazed they did not think of the sun’s glare before – I guess not often a factor in England
best blog so far