PSI - Issue 29

Michele Paradiso et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 29 (2020) 87–94 Michele Paradiso, Sara Garuglieri and Viola Ferrarini / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000 – 000

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Moreover, there are further environmental factors, such as pouring ra in, brackish air, smog, environmental and rising humidity, biologica l and weed a ttacks, impactful wea ther events tha t have caused partial collapses of the building over time. In any case the biggest cause of degradation is a ttributable to rising and percolating humidity phenomena due to the lackof drainage and ra inwater drainagesystems. Such observations are also supported by the thermographic images that were a lready carried out in 2005 by the Grupo de Diagnóstico della Dirección de Proyectos of OHCH which a lready highlighted the strong presence of descendingand risinghumidityespecially a t the south-east corner of the cloister (Figure 1).

Fig. 1. Garuglieri S., Ferrarini V., (2015), Sout-heast corner of the first cloister.

From a strictly structural point of view, the surveyof thecrack picture was carried out through the documentation and ca talogof the cracks (210 detected), measuring for each of them the respective vertices, bellies and presenceof teeth, out of plumb and position; it immediately became evident that the building has a widespread and complex structural degradation, in some cases reachingcollapse phenomena a t the limit of equilibrium.

Fig. 2. Garuglieri S., Ferrarini V., (2017), View of the east gallery with survey of the crack pattern in first cloister.