Abstract
This paper presents a different point of view on the conservation of the built heritage, adding ionizing radiation to the most well-known digital documentation dataset. Igneous building materials characterize most of the built heritage in the Campania region, and in a large part of southern Italy. The ionizing radiations proceeding from these materials can produce stochastic biological effects on the exposed living beings. The research team designed and tested a technical-scientific protocol to survey and analyse this natural phenomenon in association with the use of geological material for building purposes. Geographical Information Systems (GISs), City Information Modelling (CIM), and Building Information Modelling (BIM) are the digital tools used to manage the construction entities and their characteristics, and then to represent the thematic data as false-colour images. The emission spectra of fair-faced or plastered materials as a fingerprint of their nature is proposed as a non-invasive method. Due to both the huge presence of historical buildings and an intense touristic flow, the main square of Pompei has been selected as a study area.
Highlights
In Italy, a long-lasting tradition of geological materials used as building materials for road pavements and residential buildings exists and, usually, the lithological features of materials vary according to the local geology from where they proceed
The amount and the severity of the chemical and biological effects on a specific human tissue or organ can be expressed as the effective dose, which is a function of both the absorbed energy per mass unit and the ability of radiations to transfer energy to the crossed material
Thanks to Building Information Modelling (BIM), a comprehensive representation of the effective dose distribution from construction entities has been generated by using a false colour palette; after calculating an average value of the effective dose for the different building materials, a model of the buildings has been generated and their external surfaces have been coloured according to the average effective dose produced by the main material constituting the construction entities (Figures 3 and 4)
Summary
The effects of natural phenomena and/or anthropic processes on built heritage are generally the “one-way” topic of most of the studies aiming at improving the knowledge of the possible interactions existing among the cultural heritage site and the surrounding environment.In Italy, a long-lasting tradition of geological materials used as building materials for road pavements and residential buildings exists and, usually, the lithological features of materials vary according to the local geology from where they proceed.In the Campania region, volcanics (lava blocks) and pyroclastics (coherent yellow and grey tuffs) mostly proceeding from the peri-vesuvian area and from the environs of other regional volcanic centres (e.g., Phlegrean Fields) characterize most of the built heritage dating from the Roman age up to the last decades.These materials, which are normally affected by both chemical and mechanical alterations (especially when they are directly exposed to exogenous dynamics for long periods of time), have some peculiar behaviours which imply the capability of emitting low-intensity ionizing radiations whose levels are a function of the abundance of radioisotopes in the source rock.Ionizing radiations—even at low intensity—can produce stochastic biological effects on the living beings exposed to them. In the Campania region, volcanics (lava blocks) and pyroclastics (coherent yellow and grey tuffs) mostly proceeding from the peri-vesuvian area and from the environs of other regional volcanic centres (e.g., Phlegrean Fields) characterize most of the built heritage dating from the Roman age up to the last decades. These materials, which are normally affected by both chemical and mechanical alterations (especially when they are directly exposed to exogenous dynamics for long periods of time), have some peculiar behaviours which imply the capability of emitting low-intensity ionizing radiations whose levels are a function of the abundance of radioisotopes in the source rock. The amount and the severity of the chemical and biological effects on a specific human tissue or organ can be expressed as the effective dose, which is a function of both the absorbed energy per mass unit and the ability of radiations to transfer energy to the crossed material
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