Multiscale Fire Damage Assessment of Historical Stone Trabeated Hypostyle Halls

ABSTRACT

A proper scientific fire damage assessment programme is important to ensure safety and adopt optimum restoration strategies in case of fire accidents to monuments. This paper proposes and demonstrates a comprehensive multiscale scientific framework for fire damage assessment carried out on a historical trabeated hypostyle stone structure constructed in granite, that comprises visual, in-situ, microstructure and destructive evaluations of the affected material. Visual and non-destructive evaluations were used to make a first assessment of the structural condition of the monument, which also guided in categorising the structural elements based on damage. Further micro-analytical characterisation and destructive tests were carried out in a correlated sequential approach to explore the multiscale effects of fire in granite. The outputs of this systematic study are critical in deciding upon the course of action, namely restoration/reconstruction based on safety considerations, and the multiscale methodology can be adopted for similar fire-damage assessment in any stone construction.

KEYWORDS:

• Fire damage
• granite
• mechanical properties
• microstructure
• mineralogy
• stone constructions

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the Hindu Religious & Charitable Endowments (H.R. & C.E.) Department under the Government of Tamil Nadu and the authorities of the Arulmigu Meenakshi Sundareshwarar Temple, Madurai, India, for extending the support in carrying out the field study. Financial and infrastructural support from National Centre for Safety of Heritage Structures (NCSHS), Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras (Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India D.O. No. 5-62013-TS-1) is acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.