Structural damage in masonry

Abstract

This thesis deals with the diagnosis of structural damage in traditional masonry: cracks, deformations and tilts. Establishing the cause of this type of damage can be difficult. This research project has aimed to improve and facilitate the diagnostic process by offering support in the initial phase in which hypotheses are generated. The more precise hypotheses are formulated, and the more accurate they are classified, the more effective the further process of verification will be and the greater the probability that the final diagnosis is correct. This study has specifically focused on characteristics that can be assessed in a first survey, either visually or with the help of some simple tools or archive material. With questionnaires, a literature review of over 500 cases of damage and numerical and small-scale physical tests, the relations between symptoms of damage, their causes and their contexts (in terms of material, geometry, environment and time) have been investigated. This has resulted in a diagnostic decision support tool that helps surveyors to distinguish between causes by offering support in interpreting structural damage in masonry. The results of a user test, in which potential users applied our tool to damage cases from their practice, are positive: our tool was generally considered to be very instructive. The main contribution of this study lies in improving knowledge exchange. The existing, but highly fragmented and often seemingly contradictory information has been combined, structured and assessed on its value for diagnosing structural damage in masonry. With this thesis and the accompanying tool (ISBN 978-90-8570-760-8), expert knowledge is now made accessible to a wider group of people. Supplemental material published as: Prototype of a diagnostic decision support tool for structural damage in masonry ISBN 978-90-8570-760-8 Under: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:e9a3a2f9-16b5-4b22-a1f4-6511f3543f6e