Analysis and management of structural deformations through parametric models and HBIM workflow in architectural heritage

Abstract

Maintaining the structure and ornaments of historical buildings is essential to preserve cultural heritage in any society. Thus, dating the state and the evolution of the elements requires a special treatment, including the application of both advanced numerical analysis and non-invasive data acquisition techniques. In the latter, making digital copies of geometries through 3D reconstruction models is of great interest to compare and analyse structural evolutionary data accurately. For this purpose, appropriate software with containers of information correlated to the parametric elements in a BIM environment should be used. However, it is imperative to advance from static to dynamic models to collect the structural transformations caused by both the pass of time and other factors. The methodology followed in this paper is based on the experimentation by creating digital twins. The portico of a courtyard in a historical building from the 18th century was used as test bed. Based on the bibliographical recommendations, the terrestrial laser scanner is applied as a technique to acquire accurate data. The point cloud is used as a referential auxiliary to survey the model in the BIM platform with the Revit software. To assess the quality of the model built and to analyse the structural deviations between the parametric model and the actual geometry, the Dynamo script is used. To validate the experimentation, structural deviations are measured using both the parametric model and the point cloud with CloudCompare, a software for data treatment. The results were very positive because the deviation between the data obtained by Dynamo© and CloudCompare in the most unfavourable construction unit was between 0.5 and 1.17 cm, so these techniques are highly appropriate to review visual records and to analyse structural deviations. This new approach presents a new gap in the 3D reconstruction to date and control architectural structures, particularly in historical buildings.