On the Current State of Dovetail Wall-corner Joints in Wooden Greek Catholic Churches in Polish Subcarpathia with Structural and Sensitivity Analyses

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the current condition of some dovetail joints which form the wall corners of two Greek Catholic churches of wooden construction in Polish Subcarpathia. It also gives the historical background of the sacral architecture of that region. The two structures, which represent the same type of log corner joints are situated in Chotylub and Cewków. The buildings were examined e.g. for damage, wood moisture content, out-of-plane deviations and changes in the geometry of the walls. The study is based on in-situ examination and structural analysis of the joints. Finite element simulations of the statics of joints built of old, and mixture of old and new, wood are performed in order to show how the change of material properties affects their structural behaviour. Also, a sensitivity analysis is performed to describe the effect on potential repairs that combining old damp wood with new and dry joint members might have.

KEYWORDS:

• Dovetail
• Greek Catholic church structure
• historic structure
• log corner joints
• sensitivity analysis
• structural analysis
• timber structures

Acknowledgments

Calculations have been carried out at the Academic Computer Centre in Gdańsk.

The authors also would like to thank Mr. Ryszard Kwolek from the The National Heritage Board of Poland in Rzeszów and Mr. Janusz Mazur from the Museum of Eastern Borderland in Lubaczów for valuable guidelines and granting access to unpublished sources. Many thanks also to the guardians of the churches in Cewków and Chotylub for providing access to them for research purposes.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been partially supported by the National Science Centre (Poland) under [Grant No. 2015/17/B/ST8/03260].