1st International Conference on Structures and Architecture (ICSA), Guimaraes, Portugal, 21 - 23 July 2010, pp.1837-1844
The condition assessment of historical structures exhibits additional difficulties in comparison to that of modern structures such as the lack of applicable standards and eventual complications that can arise during material characterization. The effective use of appropriate Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) and health monitoring techniques would help to overcome these difficulties. The need for general guidelines is therefore obvious for deciding which non-destructive techniques and monitoring methods should be utilized for the condition assessment of historical structures. In this paper, the authors try to introduce a framework for the formation of such a system for condition assessment of historical masonry structures. Within this respect, some principle parameters like functionality, construction materials/techniques, soil/foundation type, age and location of the structure, seismic/climatic/environmental characteristics of the region were determined. Furthermore, a visual inspection based damage evaluation flowchart was developed using defined common input parameters. The NDE technique and monitoring type were aimed to be obtained as output parameters, at the end of the interrelated steps explained in this paper.