ICT technologies for the refurbishment of wooden structure buildings

Nowadays, one would think that after years of massive concrete and steel construction in Spain, there are not many wood structure buildings left to be refurbished except for some palaces or cathedrals. However, if we go for a walk and have a look at the old part of any city, we will realize that still most of the buildings have a wood structure. In spite of the fact that the majority of urban regulations forbid their demolition, other bad practices such as casting and overloading the wood structure are very common. Considering that we want to reach a standard of sustainable construction, the economical and environmental costs, which are implied by the deficient refurbishment makes it well worth a previous study of the structure, which in most cases represents less than a 1% of the total budget. The main goal of this paper is to present most relevant parts of the whole process of diagnosis of a wood structure building by means of Non-Destructive Testing Techniques. Among the ones to be considered, we could mention the analysis of the building and its surroundings, on-site inspection of the building, structural diagnosis, definition of the corrective actions to be taken, definition of treatments, quality control and a maintenance plan. For the on-site inspection of the building, in the paper we will highlight the use of Non-Destructive methods such as resistograph drilling, X-ray imaging, ultrasound-based testing or moisture measurement. We will provide practical examples of all this. The aim of this paper is to give the audience an overall idea on how a pre-assessment work can enhance the refurbishment of a wood structure building while reducing costs and environmental impact. Iván Araquistain, José Miguel Abascal, Oriol Munne