Condition assessment of heritage timber buildings in operational environments

Due to changing environments and aging, the structural resistance of the heritage buildings has been reduced significantly. It has become crucial to monitor and protect the architectural heritage buildings. The objective of this research is to monitor and assess the performance of the heritage Tibetan timber building in operational environments. A three-storey corridor part of the typical heritage building was chosen in the study. A long-term monitoring system was installed in the building to collect the structural response and temperature. Detailed finite element model was built based on site investigation and existing documents, and updated based on the temperature-based response sensitivity using the field-monitoring data. The updated model was further evaluated using the static and dynamic analysis for condition assessment of the building in operational environments. The results show that the updated model is effective and accurate to predict the structural behaviour of the building in operational environments. Based on temperature-based response sensitivity, it is capable of tracking structure performance throughout the life-cycle allowing for condition-based maintenance and structural protection.