MARTINS, LURDES1; VASCONCELOS,GRAÇA2;LOURENÇO, PAULO3;PALHA, CARLOS4

1) PhD student, ISISE, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minho, 4105@civil.uminho.pt

2) Assistant Professor, ISISE, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minho, graca@civil.uminho.pt

3) Full Professor, ISISE, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minho, pbl@civil.uminho.pt

4) Engineer, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minho, cpalha@civil.uminho.pt

The vernacular heritage is a symbol of cultural and historical values. It is important to preserve the stone of old buildings from harmful environmental conditions like freeze-thaw cycles, and to understand how these environmental actions act on the physical and mechanical properties of granites. Based on this idea and taking advantage of the study of granite stone of vernacular buildings in the north-eastern region of Portugal, an extensive experimental program to characterize the physical and mechanical properties of distinct types of granites before and after freeze and thaw cycles was carried out. For this, an automatic test setup was designed to make the submersion of the specimens easy and to keep them at the temperatures required in the European standard. The continuous degradation of the granite stones was monitored with ultrasonic pulse velocity and capillarity tests.

Keywords: vernacular masonry buildings, granite, durability, freeze and thawing cycles