Failure analysis of church towers and roof structures due to high wind velocities

Abstract It is generally acknowledged that heritage buildings were built by taking their environment into consideration, and therefore they have a high resilience towards various climatic factors. The increasing negative effect of the climate change on the state of conservation of valuable heritage buildings has already been recognized by heritage protection organizations, such as: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), as well as by the climate change related organizations, such as: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The recent extreme events, which took place in the western part of Romania, reinforced the importance of the study of the effect of the climate change on the state of conservation of the built heritage. On the 17th of September 2017, a severe wind, with peak wind velocities exceeding 122 km/h (33.8 m/s) affected the heritage structures of the historic city, Timisoara. In this area, most of the city and of the nearby villages, buildings date back from the 18th century. Among the most affected buildings by the storm were the 19th century village churches. The high wind velocities mainly led to the failure of the superior part of the church towers, i.e.: belfry, spire, main roof structure. The paper aims to analyze the failure mechanisms of the towers and of the roof structures of the historic churches, from this part of Romania, affected by the high wind velocities of this particular storm.