PSI - Issue 44

S. Monchetti et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 44 (2023) 1988–1995

1989

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Silvia Monchetti et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2022) 000–000

1. Introduction The development of effective strategies, based on the assessment of the different sources of risk and their limitation through periodic control and maintenance activities, are the basis for the preservation of the CH to passing the cultural assets to the future generations. This requires the design, definition and development of high-technology tools that enable reliable, rapid, and robust assessment of the vulnerability of both individual elements and the entire historical building. In fact, the built heritage includes structures that, in addition to having a particular historical-constructive relevance themselves, are also configured as containers for works of art. A complex system of “ content-container ” interaction is thus defined with a strongly multidisciplinary character that involves structural, restoration and management issues in order to guarantee the optimal accessibility by users and visitors which, from an economic point of view, significantly contributes to the community’s development. In this context, the joint development of information models and computational models finds concreteness in the integration between HBIM (Heritage Building Information Modelling) and DT (Digital Twin). On the one hand, HBIM modelling is becoming established, also for historical buildings, as a solution for the collection and handing of data deriving not only from the cognitive process but also from the activities connected with the management and structural monitoring of the whole historical building and its single elements (among others, Bruno et al. (2019), Biagini et al. (2016), Fassi et al. (2015)). On the other hand, the “digital twins” are preparing to occupy the scientific research by providing the link between the reality and its simulation through the use of structural monitoring data with a 3D representation describing their geometry, materials and components, and assessing their behaviour and structural performance. The integration of these two modelling approaches, i.e. informative and computational, would be a great improvement in the planned conservation activities by focusing on a deep knowledge of the building and, by using monitoring data, on the evaluation of weakness, possible damages and environmental hazards. Documenting the asset’s health condition, keeping track of the interventions that occurred, and updating the level of knowledge acquired, are effective actions to increase the reliability of the structural models and to schedule maintenance activities. However, to the best knowledge of the authors, no commercial software packages are capable of fulfilling all the requirements of 3D modeling and semantic data management for CH. In fact, the complexities and irregularities which characterizes the geometry and the material properties of historical buildings makes usually unsuitable the integrated database provided by the BIM commercial software and some issues remain unsolved: on the one hand the organization of database of non-geometric information and, on the other hand, the passing of information from HBIM to Finite Element (FE) models. Bruno and Roncella (2019) having set the stage to solve the first issue, focused the attention on non-geometrical information management in HBIM and the translation of traditional CH conservation procedure in the BIM environment by using, as case studies, the Cathedral of Parma and the Ducal Palace of Mantua (Italy). As far as the second issue is concerned, a first effort has been proposed in Barazzetti et al. (2015) by developing a two-step methodology able to convert a HBIM into a FE model, applied to the case study of the Castel of Masegra (Italy). Despite the contributions available in the scientific literature, some additional improvements can still be introduced in terms of: (i) datasets management, (ii) graphical user interface development specific for CH, (iii) storage and handling of monitoring data, and (iv) passing information always up-to-date to FE models for structural analyses purposes. These are the objectives of the two-years research project CHARMING PISTOIA whose methodology and the expected results are introduced in the present paper. The whole project will be developed by illustrating a representative case study, the pulpit of Giovanni Pisano in the church of Sant’Andrea in Pistoia, which will be useful to investigate the feasibility of the integration between HBIM and DT. In the following sections, after a description of the Operation Objectives of the CHARMING PISTOIA project, the description of the case study is summarized, both in terms of geometrical characteristics and experimental data available. Subsequently, the methodology and the expected results are critically discussed and, finally, some considerations are reported and some conclusions are drawn.

Nomenclature CH

Cultural Heritage

DT FE

Digital Twin

Finite Element HBIM Heritage Building Information Modelling