Continuous monitoring of wooden works of art using fiber Bragg grating sensors

Abstract

In recent years the control and monitoring of works of art has gained more and more importance. In particular, works partially or totally realized with wood, such as polychrome sculptures, painted panels or Crucifixes, are highly sensitive and delicate and thus need a particular attention. The wooden support is, in fact, an essential element for the stability of pictorial layers: the color lies on a preparation, which in turn, is anchored to the wood. Wrong conservation methods, i.e. in an environmental climate that is not controlled, or intrinsic mechanical stresses, can warp such structures, and the effects can be irreversible and destructive to the painted layer. The use of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors for the quasi-distributed, in situ measurement and continuous monitoring of deformations in painted wood panel is proposed. In order to demonstrate the applicability of FBG sensors to painted wood panels, a wooden support, made using the same 15th–16th century techniques, was prepared in the Opificio laboratories. A number of Bragg grating sensors were affixed in several critical points, on the back and front sides and on the strengthening cross-beams, in order to detect deformations in the panel dependent on the variations in the environmental relative humidity (RH). Measurements during the removal of the cross-beams are also reported. The results of measurements have shown the applicability of FBG sensors for the continuous in situ monitoring of valuable wooden objects and works of art.