Numerical inspired restoration of historic damaged stone sculptures
Résumé
This paper deals with numerical static and dynamic evaluation of alternative techniques used in restoration of damaged historical sculptures. These historical objects of high importance for cultural heritage of humanity are from mechanical point of view some unusual damaged structures whose stability could be studied using numerical methods. In the framework of REPTURE program research (the acronym stands for REstoration of sculPTUREs program) a methodology of restoration of such damaged structures is further extended on the bases of pioneering work of CAMILLE program [1, 2]. Basically, this methodology consists to firstly obtain a numeric clone of a broken statue using a laser scanning technique and then to propose alternative solutions for its stability using this numeric clone. In this paper we use numerical modeling to evaluate the performance in terms of mechanical stability of two restoration techniques: one based on direct gluing of sculpture parts and the other on a system of bolts and cables [2]. It is demonstrated that in static conditions, neglecting the ageing of the glue the two techniques are equivalent. However if one considers the eventual vibrations of the statue during transports or expositions, for the case studied here the glue based technique revealed to be inappropriate.