Legendary football matches, major concerts and a panoramic view stretching all the way to the Alps: Munich's Olympic Stadium has been providing unforgettable moments for decades. It combines architecture and emotion – and attracts visitors from all over the world. Now there are some new, inconspicuous helpers: screws in the roof construction that digitally monitor their own safety.

The stadium has been a landmark in Munich since the 1972 Olympic Games. One eye-catching feature is the world-famous tent roof – a filigree steel structure covering around 78,000 square metres of the stadium area and about half of the stadium itself. At a lofty height of up to 50 metres above the pitch, visitors can walk along footbridges on the roof – with views over Munich, down onto the pitch and, on a clear day, as far as the Alps. For adrenaline junkies, there is also the "Flying Fox", a 200-metre-long zip line that runs across the stadium lawn at a height of around 35 metres. With all these attractions, safety is the top priority. Stadtwerke München has therefore supplemented the existing screw connections on the visitor platform integrated into the roof with SensorBolts from fischer. These high-strength screws are equipped with sensors that continuously measure how strongly the components are held together and what temperatures and environmental influences they are exposed to. The data is automatically transmitted to a central system and can be accessed anytime, anywhere on a smartphone or PC. 

"What used to be possible only with regular inspections and a great deal of effort can now be handled permanently and digitally," says Martin Neumann, Head of Connected Products at the fischer Group. "Operators can see in real time whether everything is safe – without the need for costly on-site inspections. This allows maintenance and repairs to be planned more precisely, downtime to be reduced, costs to be cut, safety standards to be further increased and the service life of buildings and facilities to be extended."

In addition to screws, other fasteners with sensor technology are also available. The Olympic Stadium is just one of several projects. The technology is already being used in leisure attractions such as the "blue fire Megacoaster" at Europa-Park, in offshore wind farms and in many other buildings and facilities.