Abstract

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) of the Universidad Austral de Chile, is a historic building protected by the Council of National Monuments. It is located in the city of Valdivia, Chile, an area characterized by its high seismicity of subductive origin. The infrastructure of the MAC corresponds to the ruins of an industrial brewing facility dating from 1885. It is a buried structure, built in masonry of ceramic, steel and concrete. The property presents damages associated mainly to the passage of time, where the action of moisture and water have played a vital role in the approach to the end of its useful life. If we also consider seismic events and normative changes, it is understandable that the system requires relevant interventions in its structural system. This article presents the process that generated the proposal of structural intervention of the MAC, whose objective is to repair and improve the current condition of the museum. To this end, a series of actions have been carried out, which can be grouped into 5 stages: visual inspection, survey Structural (supplemented with georradar), invasive and noninvasive experimental field and laboratory tests, vulnerability study and calibrated numerical modeling. The results of the field and laboratory campaigns show that the materials possess properties suitable for structural use, acceptable levels of corrosion and that the soil gives the system a high lateral stiffness. In the same way, the potentiality of the use of Invasive studies of Georradar in structural auscultation, and that there is an excellent calibration between the developed model and the experimental results of environmental microvibration campaigns. The restoration involves repairing cracks, thickening of walls requested by excessive shearing, reinforcement of highly requested walls to flexo-compression, anchoring of walls requested by tensile stresses and improvement of metallic joints.