Damage Identification in Historic Ceilings Using Indoor Environmental Noise Vibrations

The sudden collapse of historic ceilings represents one of the major public safety issues threatening the heritage sector globally. The pressing need of fast, efficient, and rigorous approaches to assess the health status of historic ceilings motivated the research presented in this paper. Traditional health monitoring techniques, commonly used for structures and structural components, are generally limited by the lack of access to the ceilings, risking possible harm to their historic and artistic value. In this paper, we explore the use of a laser Doppler vibrometer combined with indoor environmental noise for a fast, efficient, and non-invasive screening of historic ceilings. A stochastic approach is proposed as a tool to map the response peak fractiles at various locations of the ceiling, thus identifying any local anomalous deformation indicating potential critical areas within the ceiling. Extensive parametric studies on a finite element (FE) model of a traditional plaster ceiling are undertaken to explore the potential of such an approach. Furthermore, experimental tests on a real traditional ceiling are carried out for validating the proposed approach.