The Appraisal of The Historic Interventions to the Superstructure Through Time: The Case of Reinforced Concrete (original) (raw)

Strengtheninginterventionsaresignificantactionstopassonheritage buildings to future generations. The study of historic strengthening interventions is worthy of understanding the historical past of the monument and gaining insight into how the building structure and structural damage have been interpreted. This paper aims to analyze historical interventions made on masonry vaults, focusing on the relationships between the deformed geometry of the original structure and the geometry of the intervention. In particular, reinforced concrete interventions made from the late 19th to the mid-20th century will be analyzed, considering the mutual effects of earthquakes, seismic codes, conservation theories and engineer- ing practices. While in the field of conservation, the use of concrete was admitted and encouraged in consolidating monuments to avoid the dangers of dismantling and reinstating the parts to be preserved, in the engineering field, its usage seemed everlasting, given structural design and safety assessment. In this understanding, according to the vault’s damage, geometry, and materials, the interventions were with different techniques and in various shapes. Although these interventions do not date back to the first construction of the monuments, they merged into the original structure. Today, the interventions can be defined as the layers showing the evolution of monuments through time. In this paper, by analyzing the cases from Turkey, an overview of consolidation works of the superstructure through comparing of two cases and an understanding of the concept of the interventions over time and putting forward the current situations to guide the subsequent restorations are presented.