ABSTRACT
Built heritage, comprising structures such as bridges, tunnels, houses and so on, is a major investment of national resources in any country. This built heritage permanently accumulates damage due to deterioration of materials, repeated loading and exceptional events. As a result, conservation, repair and strengthening, are often necessary. Within this process, inspection and diagnosis techniques, play a major role, providing information and allowing the definition of adequate remedial measures. Structures of architectural heritage, by their very nature and history (material and assembly), present a number of challenges in conservation, diagnosis, analysis, monitoring and strengthening. These limit the application of modern legal codes and building standards. The recommended methodology adopts an iterative process between the tasks of data acquisition, structural behaviour, diagnosis and safety. The latter evaluation comes in two consecutive and related stages on the basis of which the effective need for, and extent of, treatment measures are determined. If these stages are performed incorrectly, the resulting decisions will be arbitrary: poor judgement may result in either conservative and therefore heavy-handed conservation measures or inadequate safety levels. Recently, the ‘Recommendations for the Analysis, Conservation and Structural Restoration of Architectural Heritage’ has been approved by ICOMOS, providing a sound basis of principles and guidelines.
