Foxboro, MA

Gillette Stadium

Scope/Solutions
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Project Summary

Scope/Solutions

Gillette Stadium serves as home to the New England Patriots and the New England Revolution. The stadium has 68,000 seats on three decks, eighty luxury suites, and over 6,000 club seats. SGH consulted on several problems encountered during the final stages of construction.

Some of the items SGH consulted on include the following:

Cracking and deterioration of structural precast concrete stadia units and their supporting beams
Ponding throughout the stadium
Strength of the curtain wall of the luxury suites to resist wind loads
Leakage from expansion joints
Cracked glass handrails
Apparent mold growth in the curtain wall surrounding the concourse
Valve joint failure in the pump-assisted high zone grey water system

Highlights of SGH’s work include the following:

Surveyed structural stadia units using an onsite data capture system that helped streamline the investigation and report the extent of the problems to the owner
Performed a petrographic examination of concrete in our laboratory to determine the causes of cracking and deterioration
Evaluated construction tolerances to determine the cause of ponding on the stadia units
Constructed a scale stadium model for a wind tunnel study to determine wind loads on luxury suite walls for comparison with design assumptions
Monitored and evaluated grey water system operation, simulated testing of component failure, coordinated hydrodynamic analysis of the system, and determined the probable cause of the failure

Model used for wind tunnel testing

Extracted pipe samples

Concrete bond testing

A C-5 Galaxy performs a flyby over Gillette Stadium, Foxboro, Mass., Nov. 11, 2012, just before kickoff, to an estimated crowd of more than 68,000. The C-5 is assigned to Westover Air Reserve Base, Mass. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Kelly Galloway)

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