Introdution

Restoration of existing buildings is strictly related to the knowledge of the building techniques and materials that derives from the in-depth understanding of the historic, technical, architectonic and artistic features of the construction. The structural features need a path of knowledge that begins with the careful inspection of the building; this is also integrated with surveys and monitoring that provide necessary data to assess structural safety as required by national regulations and guidelines.

In the case of an existing building, the input data of this evaluation are the actions on the structure (weight, snow, wind, etc.) and the structural behaviour under these actions (subsidence and deformations, cracking etc.); the structural model is the unknown.

Then the analysis passes through the schematization of the material analysis, structures and constraints which, if are not adequately understood, finally lead to conservative assumptions that neglect important static resources of the buildings.

Analysis is carried out through a series of tables referring to material and structural properties and eventual limitations. Should such information be neglected, this can lead to reinforcement interventions that, in many cases, do not comply with the original structural design of the building. This happens especially in the case of masonry and wooden structures due to the fact that these construction techniques are very undervalued because of the lack of knowledge of their potentiality and the difficulty to define appropriate calculation techniques sufficiently consolidated such as those used for RC structures. An accurate examination of buildings, performed with the techniques that will be described below, allows for the analysis of existing building in a respectful manner and thus to achieve a better result if it is necessary to refurbish the structure. This usually creates better results to preserve the original static scheme