Locating Hidden Elements in Walls of Cultural Heritage Buildings by Using Infrared Thermography

Abstract

The structure of Tvrđa and its buildings date back to the Middle Ages. Tvrđa represents the Old Town of the city of Osijek and the best-preserved and largest ensemble of Baroque buildings in Croatia. After the withdrawal of the Ottomans in 1687, during the 18th century, the Austro-Hungarian administration systematically formed a new fortification system, regulated streets and squares and built a large number of military objects. Tvrđa took its present form in the 19th century and has kept it since then. Investigating the historical development of individual buildings, in addition to archival sources and existing architectural documentation, the obvious source of information are the buildings themselves. The aim of this paper is to explore the possibilities of using infrared thermography to find structural elements and hidden openings in historic buildings in Osijek’s Tvrđa. This paper describes the exploration of the 18th century openings on the facades of the former Kostić houses. The facades were bricked into the walls in the 19th century because houses were reused and their purposes changed from commercial to residential. Infrared thermography is often a starting, nondestructive testing method (NDT) for building analyses. This paper presents thermographic analyses of two buildings. The analyses were carried out in December 2017 and January 2018. Using a steady-state thermographic analysis of a building envelope as the first step, the audit was continued with step heating (SH) of an interest point where changes in a thermal pattern were expected due to additional bricking. Heat flux was generated by the usage of a heat gun for paint removal.