American Family Field Investigation

Overview

The American Family Field in Milwaukee, home of the MLB’s Milwaukee Brewers, was under construction when a 500-ton mobile crane collapsed onto the seating bowl of the stadium in 1999. The stadium, expected to be completed for the 2000 baseball season, officially opened in 2001.

We were retained by the Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District and the Milwaukee Brewers to provide emergency response and investigation services.

Highlights

• We conducted a structural failure investigation and collapse analysis of the crane.
• We remained onsite for approximately five months performing stabilization and damage assessment.
• We also performed an exhaustive structural investigation, including 3D linear, nonlinear and dynamic finite element analyses.