Abstract

The palace of sports represents in many ways the masterpiece from the urbanarchitectural legacy that was created for the XIX Olympiad in Mexico City in 1968; its uniqueness, from the architectural and structural point of view, makes it one of the most iconic buildings of the city. In this paper the structural modelling and numerical analysis of this iconic building of the Mexican architecture of the second part of the XX century is presented. The numerical modelling is achieved by means of a 3D finite element model in order to obtain preliminary results in terms of dynamic properties and linear and non-linear response of structural elements when subjected to gravity loads. Natural periods of the modes with high participating mass obtained on the numerical model are in well agreement to those of other structures with similar configurations. Nonlinear results show that the structure has a large safety factor under gravitational loads. Finally, recommendations about the improvements that can be applied on the actual FEM model are given based on the results obtained in order to give a better assessment to identify risk scenarios and to prevent them tooccur on such iconic structure.