Iron elements in pre-industrial buildings - Production and material properties

Iron elements in pre-industrial buildings - Production and material properties. Centuries before the erection of the earliest all-iron structures, iron elements played a crucial role in many important constructions. Little data have been published on the properties of pre-industrial iron as a building material. The present paper presents the results of an in-depth analysis of two sets of specimens from typical pre-industrial building uses of iron: iron ties from the vault of the baroque church at Furstenfeld (1727) and iron bolts from an early 19th century rehabilitation of the roof of the palace at Schleissheim (1819). Rich historical source material is also available, so that the findings can be viewed from two different perspectives. We conclude with a tentative assessment of the non-destructive Vickers hardness test in such cases.