Stainless steel and gunmetal for World Cup stadium of 2006
The home matches of RB Leipzig, promoted to Germany's top football league in 2016, are played in the Red Bull Arena, known as the "Zentralstadion" (Central Stadium) until 2010. The old stadium was built in the nineteen-fifties, and it served as a stage for mass sports events in the German Democratic Republic. Accommodating over 100,000 fans, it remains to this day German record holder in terms of capacity for football matches. Leipzig also hosted several games during the 2006 World Cup. Specially for that purpose, a completely new football arena was built inside the grassed banks of the old stadium, inaugurated in 2004. The arena provides seating for 44,000 people. The four-component, sweeping roof of the World Cup stadium is particularly striking from the architectural point of view.
The solution for drinking water with high sulphate content
The stadium's drinking water supply is impressive from quite a different point of view. Leipzig's drinking water comes from various sources and via five waterworks. The degree of hardness varies between medium and hard. But its most significant feature is the sulphate content of up to 221 mg/l (as of June 2016). At that level of concentration, these sulphur compounds react with copper – and that means undesirable corrosion. For this reason, copper drinking water pipelines had to be ruled out.
So the planners decided to use the stainless steel Sanpress piping system with SC-Contur. Over 7,000 metres were used, in the sizes 15 to 54 millimetres. 6,000 press connectors, 300 shut-off valves from the Easytop range and 1,600 flexible infrastructure connections using Sanfix Fosta plastic pipes were also installed in the stadium.
All Sanpress connectors, valves, ball valves, compensators and other system components are made of gunmetal. This makes the stainless steel system especially economical. With its high resistance to corrosion it has also proved itself thoroughly in industrial use.
