Restoration and Strengthening of Historical Buildings: The Example of Minceta Fortress in Dubrovnik

Abstract

Firstly, some important aspects of the restoration and structural strengthening of historical masonry buildings are briefly discussed. Particularly, as an illustration of the appropriate approach to solving such an issue, an example of the restoration of the Minceta fortress in Dubrovnik has been described. Based on the results of the extensive field and laboratory works with defined damages and cracking state in the fortress, as well as located sliding surfaces in foundation rock near deep excavation, the static and dynamic analysis of stress-strain states and safety was performed at the characteristic time point in the history of the fortress. Different geometry models for discretization of the fortress and the foundation rock, as well as different constitutive models for masonry and rock, were considered. Based on the results of the case study, the solutions were proposed for the strengthening of the foundation rock, as well as for the restoration and the limited allowed strengthening of the fortress. It is believed that this study may be helpful in the restoration and strengthening of similar historical masonry structures.