Detection of the seasonal cyclic movement in historic buildings by means of surveying techniques

• Main Authors: J. M. Valle-Melón, Á. Rodríguez-Miranda, P. Pérez-Vidiella
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas 2011-03-01
• Series: Materiales de Construccion
• Subjects: cyclic movements; monitoring; surveying; heritage
• Online Access: http://materconstrucc.revistas.csic.es/index.php/materconstrucc/article/view/623

As in other engineering structures, historic buildings are conditioned by atmospheric changes which affect their size and shape. These effects follow a more or less cyclic pattern and do not normally put the stability of such buildings in jeopardy since they are part of their natural dynamics. Nevertheless, the study of these effects provides valuable information to understand the behavior of both the building and the materials it is made of. This paper arose from the project of geometric monitoring of a presumably unstable historic building: the church of Santa María la Blanca in Agoncillo (La Rioja, Spain), which is being observed with conventional surveying equipment. The computations of the different epochs show several movements that can be explained as due to seasonal cycles.