The Historic Roof Structure of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna : Structural Assessment

• In 2012, the historical roof structure of the Spanish Riding School, built in the years from 1729 to 1735 as part of the ensemble of the Vienna Imperial Palace (called Hofburg), was documented by students and staff of the Vienna University of Technology. The survey was performed deformation- accurate and included both, the main structure and corresponding joints. Consequently, the documentation highlights deviations from the initial perception of the roof structure such as broken joints, inactivity of compressive devices like knee braces or excessive displacements of single structural members. Probably, these damages led to strengthening measures (=additional substructures) that were added in recent times to avoid progressive failure. This documentation formed the basis for the assessment of this historical roof structure from a structural and timber engineering point of view, which will be presented herein. The focus of the structural modelling was placed on the assessment of the two initial structural concepts, namely the main hall with and without the timber dome structure that was added in 1734, by visualisation of the internal forces and displacements. For this purpose, the nonlinear load carrying capacities and failure modes of the carpentry joints were assessed. Subsequently, alternative structural systems could be found by iterative recalculation revealing the capabilities for redundancy of the timber roof structure. Corresponding results were checked again with in-situ observations. Consequently, the findings of this study highlight the benefits of integrating modern structural and timber engineering methods and tools in the context of building history and building survey.

Subject headings

LANTBRUKSVETENSKAPER  -- Lantbruksvetenskap, skogsbruk och fiske -- Trävetenskap (hsv//swe)

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES  -- Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries -- Wood Science (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Husbyggnad (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Building Technologies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Byggteknik

Civil engineering

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)