STRETCH · Smart Textiles for RETrofitting and Monitoring of Cultural Heritage Buildings

Smart Textiles for RETrofitting and Monitoring of Cultural Heritage Buildings

STRETCH is a project that aims to increase the resilience of Cultural Heritage Buildings (CHB) and reduce their energy consumption using smart materials. These buildings, made of stone and brick masonry, generally have poor energy performance and contribute significantly to the environmental impact of the existing global building stock. Buildings in Europe consume 40% of total energy and produce 36% of greenhouse gas emissions. Renovating existing buildings is critical to support the EU's path towards net-zero carbon targets and replacing them is prohibitively expensive. Besides the energy inefficiency, historical and heritage masonry buildings often present structural deficiencies and vulnerability, leading to collapses and severe damages during recent earthquakes (e.g. Central Italy 2016). The results were significant economic losses, severe injuries and loss of human lives. In recent years, a new approach to improve the energy efficiency and seismic safety of existing buildings has emerged. This involves integrating retrofitting measures to improve cost-effectiveness, safety, and efficiency. When dealing with CHB, it is crucial to consider the impact of these interventions on the building's heritage value. As such, retrofit measures such as technologies and materials must be compatible with the building's historical features to maintain its integrity, identity, and functional efficiency while also protecting against seismic hazards and improving thermal performance. Additionally, it is crucial to monitor the health condition of existing structures to assess their structural performance and make cost-effective maintenance and retrofitting decisions. Using efficient and accurate Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems is essential in this regard. The STRETCH Project strives to conduct advanced systematic research towards developing a hybrid structural-plus-energy retrofitting and monitoring solution that combines textile-reinforced mortar (TRM) with thermal insulation systems and distributed fibre optic sensors (FOS). The hybrid system is accurately designed to be compatible with historical masonry buildings. Such an innovative realisation of all retrofitting and monitoring interventions into one allows for achieving both the required safety and energy performance and also provides SHM features while keeping the overall intervention cost low by dramatically reducing the labour cost, as all interventions are carried out at once. The STRETCH Project involves conducting experiments and research using both numerical and analytical methods. Its goal is to create a retrofit solution that combines seismic and energy measures and incorporates a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system based on fibre optic sensors (FOS). This solution is intended specifically for historical masonry buildings. The specific measurable objectives of the Project are the following: • To develop a new system that provides combined structural and energy retrofit plus SHM for the existing masonry buildings using smart multifunctional textiles, and assess it experimentally on small and large-scale. • To develop and calibrate advanced nonlinear FEM models for conducting parametric numerical analyses and simulate damage evolution up to failure for typical masonry walls strengthened with the proposed system. • To provide draft guidelines and make recommendations for future research and standardisation needs in the topic based on the project findings.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз