Quantitative Evaluation Method for the Structural Safety Status of Chinese Traditional Hall-style Timber Buildings

This paper explicates an efficient quantitative evaluation method to shed light on the structural safety status of Chinese traditional hall-style timber buildings and to provide a scientific basis for their proper conservation. Firstly, a reducing elastic modulus method for calculating the importance of the components in Chinese traditional timber buildings is developed based on the change rate of the overall strain energy per volume. Compared with the conventional deleting element method, the reducing elastic modulus method is more suitable for Chinese traditional timber buildings. Secondly, through an on-site investigation and structural analysis of a typical case, the main hall of Baoguo Temple, both the obvious damage and the hidden damage of the hall-style timber building are studied and evaluated. Finally, based on the modified analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method considering the component importance, this paper proposes a proper evaluation system, evaluation indexes and index weights of the structural safety status, leading to an efficient quantitative evaluation method for the structural safety status of traditional timber buildings. The results can provide a basis for the preventive conservation of Chinese traditional hall-style timber buildings.