Structural Design of the Olympic Torch Turin 2006

EnginSoft was awarded the contract for the structural design of the majestic torch for the Olympic flame .

The wait for the winter Olympic and Paralympics games lasted four long years, but they were over in a flash, leaving the results obtained by all the athletes, as well as a storehouse of wonderful memories of splendid sporting achievements, the fruit of commitment to physical effort.
The Olympic flame not only illuminated Turin for months but has left behind the Olympic torch to recall the inseparable twin concepts of flame and peace, the fruit of a cultural heritage that has been handed down from ancient times to the present day so that the deepest meaning of sport be, or returns to be, centred on the highest moral values.

The 2006 version of the Olympic torch drew its inspiration from the creative idea of expressing the tension of the Olympic challenge in a single object: 5 flames for a single spirit, 5 as the Olympic rings, symbol of the union of the 5 continents. In iconographical terms the torch recalled the twisting of the athlete’s body with his force bursting into a high, living flame and the effort that, in the end, is transformed into the objective achieved.

With its 60 meters, the Turin 2006 Olympic torch won the record as the highest in Olympic history. The all- steel structure weighs 145 tonnes and is composed of three pre-fabricated, site-assembled segments of 32, 17 and 11 metres in length, the latter forming the twisting summit. Given its height, the flame could be seen by the whole city of Turin as it burnt in the torch composed of 5 tubular columns, each 60 cm in diameter and set on the points of a pentagon described in a circumference of 3 metres.

A sixth 60 cm diameter tube starts from the base of the structure and is connected to the external columns by spokes arranged in a spiral to recall the twisting effect mentioned above. This tube reaches the top of the structure where it widens out in its last three metres to house the burners needed to launch the Olympic flame 4 meters into the sky. At the top of the torch, the 5 external tubes, in their turn, take on the twisting movement.
With very tight deadlines to work to, the Turin Olympic Committee entrusted the fabrication of the torch, designed by Pininfarina, to Costruzioni Cimolai Armando Spa (CCA) the company that had worked with the architect Santiago Calatrava on the restyling of the Olympic Stadium in Athens. As had in part happened on that occasion, CCA turned to EnginSoft for the structural design, dimen-sioning and con-struction details of the Turin 2006 torch. EnginSoft’ s role was to develop the structural modelling of the inside of the torch, analysing its behaviour under various design loads in order to optimize the dimensions of the welding with the reduction of fabrication time to a minimum while respecting the maximum safety parameters that the structure had to respect.

The design and fabrication of the Olympic torch provided a further occasion to demonstrate that EnginSoft’ s technical specialists were, and are, able to deal with such projects from the design stage to the structural modelling and its validation against relevant standards, and the production of the required technical documentation and support data for the engineering decisions taken. The close cooperation between CCA and EnginSoft, together with their high-level skills, enabled CCA to successfully meet the delivery date for the torch and thus pave the way for the original and spectacular inauguration ceremony for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics.

For further information:
Livio Furlan - Structural Manager
info@enginsoft.it

Article published in the Magazine: EnginSoft Newsletter English Special Issue 2006