The System for Structural Measurement Diagnosis and Surveillance in Meazza Stadium in Milan

As a part of an overall supervision project of the football stadium in Milan, Politecnico di Milano is carrying out a relevant engineering and scientific campaign in order to asses the behaviour of the structure under mechanical, corrosion and several other potential damage sources. Preliminary results of experiments carried out on the structure, also illustrated in other papers [1], pointed out the relevant necessity of a continuous surveillance and monitoring of the structure by means of a data acquisition and on-line alarm system. Such a system is required to collect data from more than one hundred mechanical and eventually thermal sensors spread throughout the whole structure (approximately 300 m long × 150 m wide), continuously, without any data loss, with an undefined time horizon, having a signal bandwidth of at least 25 Hz. In the paper the project, the setup and the tests of such system are illustrated with particular emphasis on the data acquisition network, with reference both to previous similar experiences as well as to the reasons leading to the adopted choices, bound to peculiarities of the situation. Crucial issues of the system (e.g. signal timing and synchronization, metrological performances, watchdog and alarm-on-failure considerations, online analysis, resistance to harsh and noisy environments, datastorage and analysis strategies) will be outlined, together with preliminary results from the system on field.