This summer tens of thousands of visitors from across Europe will travel to France to witness elite performance in action - and not just on the pitch. New and renovated stadiums themselves will be among the biggest stars of the show and Kaiflex will play a key role.
A modern football stadium is more than just a place to watch the game. It’s home to air-conditioned hospitality suites, television studios and vast concourses full of kiosks for food and drink. Servicing these on such a large scale presents a major mechanical engineering challenge.
In France the challenge has been multiplied - with 10 different stadiums in use for the games, 4 of which have been newly constructed.
Perhaps the most eye-catching stadium that will be used is the historic Stade Velodrome in Marseille with it’s spectacular new roof. Kaiflex was used extensively in Marseille as it was in the Grand Stade De Lyon, Stade Pierre Maurdy in Lille and the Stade de Nice.
Keeping the energy in the stadium
Everyone wants to see the energy generated in the crowds stay in the stadium and the mechanical designers behind 4 of the biggest stadiums in France were no different.
Football stadiums are spatially huge places and connecting the mechanical systems requires thousands of metres of pipework. If left uninsulated these pipes could account for energy loss on a vast scale.
History awaits
Although new the stadiums in use this summer are intended to be in use for a very long time. This means engineering mechanical services that last.
Condensation, which leads to pipe corrosion, must be avoided at all costs to ensure that each stadium is able to fulfil its destiny. Doing so requires pipe insulation with a reliable water vapour barrier.
Insulation for the big occasion
When it came to selecting pipe insulation Kaiflex, the flexible closed cell insulation from Kaimann, was a natural choice. With excellent thermal properties, Kaiflex is very effective at keeping energy in the pipes whilst the inherently moisture resistant cell structure provides an in-built water vapour and reliable protection against corrosion.
Kaiflex also scored for its dust and fibre free nature. With no fibres present in the material the potential for fibre migration into the air-stream is completely eliminated making Kaiflex an insulation material you can rely on in the most public of occasions.
This is why, in each stadium between 4,000 m and 5,000 m of Kaiflex insulation were used - enough to circle the entire pitch more than a dozen times
Source: Kaimann UK · Copyright image: shutter stock / Kaimann GmbH