ONSITEFORMASONRY is a research project funded by the European Commission under the 5. Framework Programme 1998-2002 in the Thematic Programme: Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development and the Key Action: The City of Tomorrow and Cultural Heritage.
The main objective of the project is the development and improvement of methodologies for the evaluation of the structure of historic masonry Cultural Heritages. For effective restoration and conservation of historic buildings, a detailed assessment of the structural safety and physical damages of the masonry structure is required. Therefore, typical masonry damages and the most frequent pathologies in each region have been identified and summarised in a catalogue of problems and damages. Selected non-destructive (NDT) and minor-destructive (MDT) techniques are performed by the partners including the development of software packages for fast and automated data analysis. The strategy for an effective and useful combination of different NDT and MDT methods will be worked out considering the results of case studies and taking into account the experiences of the consortium members. Recommendations and guidelines for the application of the integrated methodologies will be developed in close co-operation with end-users.
Building stones are porous media and they can deteriorate through moisture ingress and secondary damage such as crystallization of soluble salts. Not only is this due to the increasing number of flood events in the past years but also structural damages of houses from activity such as leakage or rising moisture (groundwater) are the main causes. The potential benefit of several nondestructive testing methods to assess water damage in building stone has been studied in a field-scale experiment. Three testing walls made of fired clay brick, sandstone, and spongilite were flooded and their drying behavior monitored using infrared thermography, complex resistivity, ground penetrating radar, and ultrasonics. The results were compared to the average moisture content determined by gravimetric weighing of the specimens. Qualitatively, the results of the different nondestructive testing methods matched well. But in terms of quantitative data, some scatter was observed and the results should be viewed with care. Collecting time-consuming calibration data would help to overcome this problem, but especially when dealing with historic building structures, this is not always possible in practice.