In Situ Advanced Diagnostics and Inspection by Non-destructive Techniques and UAV as Input to Numerical Model and Structural Analysis - Case Study

Abstract

Assessment and structural health monitoring of existing timber structures has experienced huge interest in last decades. The main reasons are clear messages that sustainable development is a long term goal of the global policy which results in modifications or substitutions or extensions of existing buildings and engineering works (Kyoto protocol 1997, all further World Climate Summits) beside protection and conservation of the heritage buildings built in timber and assessment and collection of crucial data for the design and long-term behavior of new structures in timber. At the moment, European norms (Eurocodes) cover engineering principles that could be used to form the basis of assessment of structures or structural elements but basically they are concepted for the design of new structures. In this paper assessment methods for timber structures are summarized and the most common ones are briefly explained. The main focus of the paper is to present non-destructive and semi-destructive test methods for timber structures and use of unmanned vehicle for gathering the data which were inputs for numerical model and structural analysis of the structure. The whole protocol is shown on actual case study of the H2020 Project INCEPTION, Technical Museum Nikola Tesla in Zagreb, Croatia.