Puerto Rico Coliseum José Miguel Agrelot (Choliseo)

Monitoring stadiums and arenas, especially when thousands of people are gathered, can be considered crucial for several reasons:

Structural Safety: When large numbers of people jump or move in unison, the dynamic loads on the structure increase significantly. These loads can cause vibrations and stress on the building, potentially leading to structural fatigue or even failure if not properly managed. Continuous monitoring ensures that the stadium’s structural integrity is maintained, preventing accidents.

Crowd Control and Safety: Monitoring helps in crowd management by providing real-time data on how people are distributed across the stadium. In case of emergencies, this information can be critical for guiding evacuations and ensuring that all attendees are safe.

Preventing Panic: In the event of an unexpected event like a small tremor or unexpected structural noise, real-time monitoring can help quickly assess the situation and prevent panic by providing immediate feedback that everything is under control.

Optimizing Design and Maintenance: Long-term monitoring data can help engineers and architects improve the design of future stadiums by understanding how structures respond to various loads. It also informs maintenance schedules, ensuring that the stadium remains in top condition over time.

Regulatory Compliance: In many regions, regular monitoring of large structures like stadiums is required by law. This ensures that the venue meets all safety regulations and standards, protecting both the owners and the public.

Overall, the safety and well-being of thousands of spectators depend on effective monitoring of the stadium’s structural and operational conditions.

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Case Study

The Colieso de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot is the biggest indoor arena in Puerto Rico dedicated to entertainment. Constructed from 1998 to 2004, the Choliseo, as it is known locally, opened Sept. 4, 2004 to cater to up to 18,500 spectators at a time for a variety of events including concerts and sports. It is located in the Golden Mile of San Juan.

As Puerto Rico is prone to earthquakes and seasonally may encounter high winds and hurricanes, and as the Coliseo has been serving large audiences for 20 years and has a duty to safeguard the public and the premises, the Coliseo implemented a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) solution in 2023.

In the Coliseo project, Estructura utilized GeoSIG’s GeoSMART software to retrieve live data from accelerometers installed across the stadium. These advanced tools provide valuable insights into the structural health of the building, even during massive events when the stadium is filled with thousands of people. The GeoSMART software not only processes real-time acceleration data with remarkable precision, but it also archives the data for long-term analysis spanning years.

This is delivered through a simple, user-friendly web interface that allows the user to intuitively uncover hidden patterns and to conduct deep analyses of the structure’s behavior. The software includes a 3D model representation that highlights potential defects in specific building elements such as planes, nodes and installed channels.

By analyzing the live data, the software can extract crucial structural metrics such as FFT (Fast Fourier Transform), Response Spectrum (RSSP) of the building, Displacement, Velocity, and Interstory Drift. Furthermore, the system is highly adaptable, allowing for the integration of additional sensors to monitor external factors like wind and building tilt, ensuring a comprehensive analysis of the stadium’s structural health.

Over the long term, the same data available in the live section are gathered and can be used to monitor trends, detect damage early, evaluate seismic performance, plan maintenance, assess the building’s behavior (particularly under high stress during major events), and ensure compliance with safety regulations, thereby enhancing the safety and longevity of the structure. The GeoSIG specialist can then customize each threshold using any device connected to the GeoSMART system, based on the user’s requirements. Color changes will be toggled in the 3D model when the defined thresholds are exceeded:

GeoSMART also features an early warning system that provides detailed structural assessment reports (or periodical status reports of the facility).

Additionally, the system performs status verification on the channels and devices connected to it to detect any potential data streaming or hardware issues. All these reports can also be sent via email to keep stakeholders informed. (At left is an example of Page 1 of a periodic report downloaded from the Coliseo project).

Lastly, a tower lamp, which displays different colors based on the level of exceedance, can also be installed on site to provide immediate visual warnings. This allows people on the premises to be quickly alerted to any reported dangerous situations by the system.

Please note that configuration, position, and number of installed instruments must be carefully planned because each structure has its own properties and needs. Our solution will ensure a correct and complete monitoring but it is vitally important that a structural engineer can define these limits so that the exceedance thresholds are safe and relevant.

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Real-time Monitoring

The image above compares 3 Bad Bunny concerts at the Coliseo with dancing crowds compared to six games in a FIBA tournament, where the crowds showed less movement in the stands. The data show that the crowds had much more impact on the building during the concert. These are the kinds of custom reports that enable facilities managers to make decisions based on trends.

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Estructura

Estructura is a well-reputed logistics company with more than 20 years’ experience, working in close Partnership with Swiss manufacturer GeoSIG, with the objective of creating awareness about structural health monitoring systems and offering SHRM solutions tailored to the needs of the building.

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GeoSIG

GeoSIG is a Swiss manufacturer who, over 30 years, has developed sensing devices, recording systems, accessories and software which are in use in more than 50 countries around the world. Turnkey solutions for a diverse range of monitoring requirements including buildings, high-rise buildings, dams, bridges, tunnels and nuclear power plants are widely in use, which is testimony to their achievement in the field of SHM. GeoSIG’s philosophy is to provide peace of mind for customers by offering turnkey solutions, where all the elements are included, from hardware, software, installation and commissioning by approved Partners in all the major countries—a solution with continuous monitoring that provides meaningful data to help customers make the important decisions.