Detecting hidden ties in historic venetian palace by means of gpr

Due to environmental conditions, historic buildings in Venice adopted in the past very particular construction techniques and show now some characteristic damage appearance, highlighted by specific crack and deformation patterns. One of the more characteristic solutions used in Venetian buildings is the connection system among floors and walls. In the framework of CORILA Research Program 2004-2006, the task of developing particular NTD survey for historical buildings in Venice was applied to a full-scale real case study, the Pisani Palace in St. Marina. The particular scope of this application was the detection of the hidden iron connection devices that in Venetian building usually linked the wooden floors to the masonry external façades, assuring the structural efficiency to the buildings system. The GPR technique was adopted for its ability to localize precisely the hidden ties and to trace a complete map of the system quickly and without any damage to the surfaces investigated.