(Ed.) Report D5.2: laboratory and on-site testing activities, Part 4: Laboratory analyses on materials from test sites

This report is the final form of the deliverable D5.2; in this document are reported the results obtained from a part of all activities provided within the Work Package 5 of the SMooHS project. Results derived from laboratory and on-site testing activities are presented in separated parts of the D5.2 in order to provide the end user specific documents focused on macro-themes recognized of great interest. This document, D5.2, part 4, reports the results of task D5.4 which has been entirely dedicated to extended and deep laboratory analyses on the construction materials considered in this research. The testing aims were to characterize the materials from the chemical-physical and mechanical viewpoints. At this regard, it was to be underlined that tests carried out on small specimens and samples were able to provide a considerably detailed level of information; this is not usually the case for tests made on site, on parts of buildings. Further, obtaining mechanical parameters by means of NDT (Non Destructive Testing) and (destructive) mechanical testing permits to calibrate the parameters bonded to the material stiffness, and indirectly defined by ND compared to the direct measure via mechanical tests. Therefore, particular relevance has been attributed to the choice of materials to be tested. With the aims of incrementing the scientific knowledge available in the literature on the decay promoted by moisture and salt attack, for masonry the experimental campaign has foreseen the application of several testing techniques. The crossed analysis of chemical-physical, mechanical properties and salt contamination constitutes an innovative approach for characterizing the vulnerability to construction material decay.