AE Newsletter - Fall/Winter 2003
In
Sep. 2003, Dr. Thomas Boothby and Ece Erdogmus, AE doctoral
candidate, traveled to the cathedral of St. Etienne in Auxerre, France
(left) to complete an important part of their research project on medieval
masonry vaults. Their goal was to create dependable computer models of the
complex masonry vaulted systems (right), which were constructed in the
Gothic style (12-14th century) in France and Italy, and to validate the
three dimensional computer models of these vaulted systems by in situ
experiments.
The cathedral was already undergoing renovations under the guidance of an international technical committee composed of artists, art historians, architects and engineers, that was established by the Centre d'Etudes Medievales (CEM) in Auxerre. Harry Titus, an art history professor from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, who was involved with the technical committee, assisted Boothby in contacting the appropriate authorities, obtaining permission for the experiments in the cathedral, and acquiring drawings of the building. From these drawings, a three-dimensional finite element analysis model of the vaulting system was formed (right).
With accelerometers and a data acquisition system on loan from Dr. Linda Hanagan, Boothby and Erdogmus instrumented the vaults of the cathedral and recorded vibrations created from impacts from an instrumented hammer (below).
Following the trip, the data collected in France were processed and the experimental and analytical results were compared. The in situ observations of the structure and the experiments are currently being used to improve the approximations for the material properties and boundary conditions used when forming the analytical models. Once the comparison and validations are completed, the objective of forming dependable models will be achieved.
Boothby and Erdogmus gratefully acknowledge the support of Linda Hanagan, Harry Titus and The Centre d'Etudes medievales (CEM) in Auxerre.
Above the vaults of Auxerre: Ece Erdogmus working on the data acquisition system (above) and Dr. Thomas Boothby with the instrumented impact hammer. (right)
Above the vaults of Auxerre: Accelerometers on the vault.
Medieval wheel used during the original construction of the cathedral.
