Steel and the Olympic Venues

STUDENT BACKGROUND

The 2008 Beijing Olympic stadium is an amazing structure that needs metals like steel with special qualities, in order to create the interesting shapes we see in its design. The design is called the "Bird's Nest" Stadium.

Metals come from minerals which we mine from the ground. Below are two of the many venues in which the Sydney 2000 Olympic sports took place.
 

	The Dunc Gray velodrome, a new cycling venue, was named after the first Australian to win a gold medal for cycling. It is the largest and most innovative steel grid shell structure ever made in Australia. It is not only functional but also has a fantastic shape. What does its shape remind you of? (Hint: All cyclists need one!)
Stadium Australia (Joanna Buckley)	Stadium Australia seats 110,000 people and was used for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and Athletics events, making it the world's largest Olympic stadium. It has wonderful safety and environmental innovations including quick-exit spiral ramps and four large underground tanks to recycle rainwater captured from the roof. The enormous roof is held up solely by two steel arches.

Steel was chosen as the major construction material for these and other Olympic venues as it met and exceeded environmental standards set within the Green Games Guidelines. Steel also provided innovative design and construction solutions.

Steel is a very strong form of the metal iron. Different types of steel can be made for different purposes, by mixing iron with various other metals (that is, making 'alloys'). Alloys of steel are tough, resistant to rusting and able to be easily machined and shaped so that the building designs can be really clever and innovative.

The Beijing National Stadium (the “Bird’s Nest) is 330m long, 220m wide and 69.2m tall. It uses 36km of unwrapped steel which weighs over 45,000 tonnes.

You can view pictures of the construction of the “Bird’s Nest” Stadium by visiting:
http://en.beijing2008.cn/cptvenues/venues/nst/ 

Over 130,000 tonnes of steel was provided by BHP Billiton (BHPB) for the construction of the Sydney Olympic venues and infrastructure. Most of this steel came from iron ore mined by BHPB in Western Australia and South Australia. BHPB is the world's largest producers of iron ore, and Australia exports a lot to other countries, thus greatly helping our economy and high standard of living.

In this topic you will learn about the Dunc Gray velodrome, Stadium Australia, and the new Athens Olympic Stadium and steel's amazing properties and how it is made. You will soon realise why steel is such a great metal to have been chosen for the construction of these three Olympic venues.

Student Activities

In Great Shape (Looks at the use of steel arches in Olympic Venues)

From Mineral to Metal (Looks at the production of steel)

Also try these Extension Activities

Crystal Creations (Looks at how metals form and how they can be changed)

Rust Resistance (Looks at how steel can be prevented from rusting)