Heritage Building Monitoring

Knowledge and technology to preserve architectural heritage

Mission

The preservation of buildings requires multidisciplinary skills as well as specific knowledge, and this is especially true when dealing with historic structures. Our goal is to provide research and technology to keep monitored and safe the architectural heritage. We (1) install sensors on historic buildings to record real time their structural behaviour; we (2) evaluate the records, through data processing and numerical modelling, to early recognize possible pathologic or critical conditions; we (3) perform risk analysis and guide decision of those concerned with their preservation.

Research topics

Structural Health Monitoring of heritage buildings. We are seeing rapid development of sensor technology which will radically change monitoring methods for civil structures in coming years. Fiber optics technology offers today durable solutions, and wireless communication too can simplify many installation and operation issues. We also expect these technologies to be available at very low cost. The vision of the group is to take advantage of low cost distributed sensor networks to permanently monitor historic buildings and to use Internet-based analysis tools to deliver real-time risk information to those entrusted with the preservation of our heritage. Some of the projects carried out by the group are listed in the section ‘Applications’.

Decision support. Today the approach to monitoring is strictly problem dependent: deciding whether to instrument, what type of instrumentation is needed, how to interpret the data recorded, all seem to be technical issues left to the technical judgment of the engineer in charge of the evaluation. In reality the decision about any intervention should be a matter for the owner, who must carefully evaluate the benefit of undertaking an action, keeping in mind issues that often go beyond the merely structural aspect, such as the historical, architectural or symbolic value of the building or the socio-economic impact of the action. In addition, budget limitations require actions to be ranked, with priority for cases that carry more risk and preference for actions that are more effective in economic terms. As the quantity and variety of information involved grows, appropriate technical tools are needed to convert this mass of data into risk indices and intervention priorities.

Historical Heritage Management. An historic heritage management system (HHMS) is s a set of technical instruments, procedures and models that provides the public administration with the information needed to take decisions for the conservation of the architectural heritage which is under its responsibility. Since 2005, the group has set up a prototype of a management system implementing the paradigm shown in Figure 1. HHMS includes a prototype online database with web-based instruments for inventory, conservation state assessment, risk evaluation and prioritization of action. Information input to the database is partly manual, for the inventory and the results of visual inspection, and in part automatic for data from instrumental monitoring. Manual input is based on procedures compatible with standards developed by the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione (ICCD) and by the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro (ICR). All the information collected in the Data Base is processed by deterioration, risk and structural models, and converted to risk data. The system can also automatically record, process and analyze data flows from permanent monitoring systems; Bayesian techniques are used for processing the large amount of data acquired by the sensors to develop information on the risk of the structure. See more at http://hhms.ing.unitn.it:8080/hhms.

Applications

The group has been working on a number of monitoring project of heritage structures, including, among the others: the dome of San Gaudenzio Basilica in Novara; Torre Vanga in Trento; San Clemente Church in Brentonico, TN; Castel Thun, Ton, TN; Santa Maria Assunta Church in Villa Lagarina, TN; the bell tower of San Miniato Cathedral, PI; the railway bridge on Noce river at La Rocchetta, TN; the covered timber bridge in Panchià, TN; the old truss bridge on Maso river in Castelnuovo, TN. Ongoing monitoring projects include the following.

Portogruaro Civic Tower. A 59 m tall masonry campanile, originally built in XIII century and repeatedly refurbished, which exhibit an impressive out of plumb of more than 1.2 m at the balcony level (Figure 2). Since 2003, the tilt of the tower has been observed continuously by a monitoring system. The main instrument installed is an inclinometer, based on a pendulum hanged from the ceiling of the upper vault in a water tank located at ground level (Figure 3). The position of the pendulum is permanently recorded by two digital network cameras, which permanently acquire pictures of the wire and transmit them though the Internet every 10 minutes to the monitoring station, physically located at the University of Trento. Using image recognition software, these images are real-time processed in order to calculate the position of the wire and the tilt of the tower. It was a remarkable outcome of the research to early discover that, contrary to what was commonly believed, the tower is still tilting, and that its imperceptible movement continues at least since 1879. Based on the result of the monitoring the municipality administration is now planning a reinforcement intervention of the tower foundation. Project funded by the Municipality of Portogruaro, VE, Italy. See more at http://www.smartstructures.org/portogruaro.

Torre dell’Aquila in Trento. This 31 m tall medieval tower, part of the Buonconsiglio Castle is one of the most remarkable monuments in Trento. Here the monitoring effort is motivated by preservation of the integrity of a set of frescoes decorating the room on the second floor, representing one of most important International Gothic artworks in Europe. The structural response is monitored through a number of sensors including accelerometers, fiber optic deformation gauges, and thermometers (Figure 4). To reduce the impact of  application demanded deployment of a wireless sensor network, including development of customized hardware and software. The wireless module selected as the core platform allows reliable wireless communication at low cost with a long service life. The system has been operating since September 2008, and in recent months the data loss ratio was estimated as less than 0.01%. Based on these data a Bayesian updating procedure is employed to real-time estimate the probability of abnormal condition states. This first period of operation demonstrated the stability and reliability of the system, and its ability to recognize any possible occurrence of abnormal conditions that could jeopardize the integrity of the frescos. Project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education (MIUR) and carried out in cooperation of DISI-UniTN, FBK-IRST, Tretec srl and Interplaty Software. See more at http://hhms.ing.unitn.it:8080/hhms and http://d3s.disi.unitn.it/projects/torreaquila.

Santa Maria Maggiore in Trento. Another iconic monument in Trento – the cathedral of Trento and the seat of the first session of the XVI Century Council. The church has undergone since year 2008 extensive archaeological investigations, involving excavation 4 m deep below the floor level of the nave. To control the stability of the masonry walls both during the excavation and the following restoration works, the church is monitored using a robotic optical station, which continuously surveys the position of a number of points on the structure with sub-millimetric resolution. Geometrical models are used interpret the response of the structure, while limit state analysis allows to estimate how far is the current state from a critical condition. Project funded by the Parish of Santa Maria in Trento. See more at http://www.smartstructures.org/santamaria.


 

Highlights

  • Torre Aquila pilot system is the first application worldwide of wireless sensor network to a historic building for permanent structural monitoring.
  • Torre Aquila work received the best paper award at 8th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, in 2009.
  • The work on Torre Aquila is the sole European contribution, and the only one addressing historic building, published in the special issue of the international journal Smart Structures and Systems dedicated to wireless sensor monitoring (Vol.6, No.5-6, 2010).

Funded research projects

  • Project title: "PRIN 2004089844: Monitoring and control of the Histotical Heritage.", PI: P. Zanon. Source: Italian Ministry of Education (MIUR). Period: 1/1/2007-12/31/2008. Amount: € 59,000.
  • Project title: "PRIN 2002088932: Structural monitoring and control using advanced techniques." PI: P. Zanon. Source: Italian Ministry of Education (MURST). Period: 1/1/2003-12/31/2004. Amount: € 59,000.
  • Project title: "Portogruaro-3: Monitoring of the Civic Tower" PI: D. Zonta. Source: Municipality of Portogruaro. Period: 9/1/2004-8/31/2010. Amount: € 31,920.
  • Project title: "SantaMaria-2: Monitoring of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore" PIs: R. Zandonini and D. Zonta. Source: Parish of Santa Maria Maggiore, Trento. Period: 9/18/2009-12/31/2010. Amount: € 18,000.
  • Project title: "SantaMaria-1: Monitoring of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore" PIs: R. Zandonini and D. Zonta. Source: Parish of Santa Maria Maggiore, Trento. Period: 8/20/2008-8/19/2009. Amount: € 21,600.

People

Faculty members

Postdoctoral Reserchers

Doctoral Students

Extradipartmental cooperation

  • Gian Pietro Picco (DISI)
  • Luca Mottola (DISI)
  • Stefan Guna (DISI)
  • Matteo Ceriotti (FBK-IRST)
  • Amy L. Murphy (FBK-IRST)
  • Michele Corrà (3Tec srl)

Selected publications

  • Zonta D., Wu H., Pozzi M., Zanon P., Ceriotti M., Mottola L., Picco G.P., Murphy A.L., Guna S., Corrà M., "Wireless sensor networks for permanent health monitoring of historic constructions". Smart Structures and Systems, 2010, Vol.6, No.5-6, p. 595-618.
  • Zonta D., Pozzi M., Zanon P., "Managing the historical heritage using distributed technologies". International Journal of Architectural Heritage, 2008, v. 2, n. 3, p. 200-225.
  • Ceriotti M., Mottola L., Picco G.P., Murphy A.L., Guna S., Corrà M., Pozzi M., Zonta D., Zanon P. "Monitoring Heritage Buildings with Wireless Sensor Networks: The Torre Aquila Deployment". In: Proceedings of the 8th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN 2009, SPOTS track), San Francisco, CA, April 13-16, 2009. Best Paper Award.
  • Zonta D., Pozzi M., Zanon P., Anese G.A., Busetto A., "Real-time Probabilistic Health Monitoring of the Portogruaro Civic Tower". In: Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions 2008, Rotterdam:Balkema, 2008. Proc. "VI International conference on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions (SAHC08)", Bath, 2-4 Jul 2008

See more at the website below.

Contacts

Dott. Ing. Daniele Zonta
+39 0461 282537
daniele.zonta@ing.unitn.it
http://www.ing.unitn.it/~dzonta