Panel Design for Construction Project of Metropol Parasol in Seville, Spain

Structures Analyzed with Dlubal Software

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Design of a panel of circa 4 m x 6 m in RFEM

Design of panel of circa 4 m x 6 m in RFEM (© Finnforest)

Metropol Parasol in Seville (© Finnforest)

Detail of connected timber panels (© Finnforest)

Roof structure of Metropol Parasol (© Finnforest)

Customer Project

01/10/2012

Spain RFEM Timber Structures Buildings Laminate and Sandwich Structures

Structural Engineering	Timber Construction, Analysis and Design Finnforest, Aichach, Germany www.metsawood.com/global in cooperation with: Harrer Ingenieure, Karlsruhe, Germany PBB Ingenieure, Ingolstadt, Germany APU engineering, Braunschweig, Germany Wevo Chemie, Ostfildern, Germany Borimir Radovic, Knittlingen, Germany Structural Planning Arup & Partners International Ltd. Berlin, Germany / Madrid, Spain www.arup.com
Construction	Main Contractor SACYR S.A.U. Sevilla, Spain www.sacyr.com Timber Construction Finnforest Aichach, Germany
Architecture	J.MAYER.H Berlin, Germany www.jmayerh.de
Investor	Ayuntamiento de Sevilla, Spain

The Metropol Parasol was built in the historic center of Seville in Spain.

Under its roof, the building combines an archeological excavation, a market hall, an urban open-air venue and an extraordinary shadow construction made of timber, with an integrated restaurant and walks offering wonderful views over the town.

The structural system is a hybrid construction consisting of timber, concrete, steel and composite steel.

Timber Construction with Panels Made of Laminated Veneer Lumber

The most interesting and impressive part of the Metropol Parasol is the accessible timber construction which is 150 m long and up to 28 m high. It consists of multi-layer glued timber panels of the LVL type Kerto‑Q (produced by the Finnforest company).

Some structural innovations had to be made for the implementation, for example the polyurethane coating which is 2 to 3 mm thin, the connection details optimized for mounting and the annealing of the epoxy resin used for gluing threaded bars in place, which was performed for the first time in timber constructions. The annealing became necessary to raise the safety level because more than 60°C is reached in summer inside the timber structure.

Both the structural engineer and the timber construction company decided on a connection system with glued-in tension bars representing a way of connecting elements appropriate for achieving a high load bearing capacity but which is at the same time of relatively low weight.

The timber structure consists of approx. 3,400 individual parts with a total of 2,500 m³ of panels made of laminated veneer lumber used for the construction work.

Stress Analysis with RFEM in Timber Panels

As the panels are connected with releases in the intersection points around the vertical axis, the internal forces from the bearing capacity of plates are almost always negligible. Normally, the stress design is reduced to the stresses occurring within the plane of the timber sheet.

The timber cross‑sections in the branching points where the timber gridshell is divided into a top and a bottom part were designed by Finnforest using RFEM and FE sheet models.