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.
Strategies and methodologies for the assessment of historic masonry structures based on non-destructive and minor-destructive testing methods were developed in the European Research Project ONSITEFORMASONRY and were successfully applied to assess the structure and material properties of selected structural elements in the Altes Museum in Berlin-Mitte.
For the planning of a broad reconstruction within the framework of a master plan concerning the whole of Museum Island in Berlin, several questions arose which are also typical for other historic structures in general, thus the Altes Museum was chosen as a pilot site for the validation of non-destructive testing methods.
Muon Tomography of the Interior of a Reinforced Concrete Block: First Experimental Proof of Concept
(2021)
Quality assurance and condition assessment of concrete structures is an important topic world-wide due to the aging infrastructure and increasing traffic demands. Common topics include, but are not limited to, localisation of rebar or tendon ducts, geometrical irregularities, cracks, voids, honeycombing or other flaws. Non-destructive techniques such as ultrasound or radar have found regular, successful practical application but sometimes suffer from limited resolution and accuracy, imaging artefacts or restrictions in detecting certain features. Until the 1980s X-ray transmission was used in case of special demands and showed a much better resolution than other NDT techniques. However, due to safety concerns and cost issues, this method is almost never used anymore. Muon tomography has received much attention recently. Novel detectors for cosmic muons and tomographic imaging algorithms have opened up new fields of application, such as the investigation of freight containers. Muon imaging also has the potential to fill some of the gaps currently existing in concrete NDT. As a first step towards practical use and as a proof of concept we used an existing system to image the interior of a reference reinforced 600 kg concrete block. Even with a yet not optimized setup for this kind of investigation, the muon imaging results are at least of similar quality compared to ultrasonic and radar imaging, potentially even better. The data acquisition takes more time and signals contain more noise, but the images allowed to detect the same important features that are visible in conventional high energy X-ray tomography. In our experiment, we have shown that muon imaging has potential for concrete inspection. The next steps include the development of mobile detectors and optimising acquisition and imaging parameters.