Historical buildings: Multidisciplinary approach to structural/energy diagnosis and performance assessment

The evaluation of performance of historical masonry buildings requires a multidisciplinary approach. Indeed, the use and functionality of a building is a multidisciplinary item related to various issues as structural and thermal aspects, acoustic requirements and efficiency of active energy systems. Since these buildings are often used for strategic, educational and recreational facilities (offices, hospital, barrack, school, university, library, museum) or as residences, they frequently need both structural interventions for warrant safety under static and dynamic actions and energy refurbishment for warrant a comfortable and optimal use of the building depending on its specific use. Since the energy refurbishment can be easily associated to structural consolidation or functional reorganization works, this paper is aimed to introduce a methodological approach with reference to both structural behavior and energy performance for the space heating and cooling. The main steps are the survey, the diagnosis, the creation of a numerical Finite Element model necessary for the verification of the structural safety, the validation of a dynamic model for energy performance assessment and the choice of criteria and techniques of interventions. The proposed approach combines both structural and energy analyses, based on a detailed identification of the building, carried out by means of in situ tests and surveys. As case study, the proposed approach has been applied to Palazzo Bosco Lucarelli, a historical masonry building located in the ancient center of Benevento (South Italy). (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.