Florida Suncoast Dome, Saint Petersburg, Florida, USA, 1989

Architect: HOK Sports Facilities Group
Engineer: Geiger Engineers
Credits: Case Western Reserve University

The Florida Suncoast Dome is a circular tensegrity structure with radial plane cable trusses. The fabric roof is made of Teflon-coated fiberglass. A circular concrete compression ring of 210 m diameter is supported by 24 concrete columns of 1.83 m diameter. The heights of the columns vary from 30.48 m to 53.22 m resulting in a slope for the compression ring of 6.258 degrees. A steel tension ring is placed at the top. There are 4 hoops parallel to the compression ring made of wire strands (40, 45, 80 and 140 strands). Each strand consists of 7 steel wires of 5.08 mm diameter. The structural behavior of this structure was studied at Case Western Reserve University using the model shown in the pictures.