1st School "Piero Gazzola" on Rock Mechanics for Cultural Heritage Preservation

http://dicma.ing.uniroma1.it/winterschoolrock

The Winter School intends to promote the scientific competencies of Egyptian students, professors, scientists and practitioners in the field of Rock Mechanics applied to the Preservation of Cultural Heritage. The Egypt, as several countries worldwide, is rich in monuments and cultural sites excavated in rock-masses or build with rock materials whose characteristics, mechanical behaviour and long-term properties should be investigated to improve the capacity to analyse the current stability conditions and the state of conservation and to design the eventual mitigation measures to be adopted in the respect of site unicity and integrity.

The lessons are tentatively scheduled from May the 14th to May the 20th 2022 and will cover the following topics:

• the contribution of Geology, Engineering Geology and Rock Mechanics to cultural heritage preservation of rupestrian and rock construction sites

• in situ investigation and survey, characteristics of discontinuities

• characteristics of rocks, laboratory tests

• in situ tests (mechanical and geophysical)

• mechanical behaviour of rocks and rock-masses

• monitoring techniques

• stability of rock slopes (sliding, toppling, rock falls, kinematic analysis)

• stability of rock constructions including pyramids, underground caves and tombs

• mitigation measures

• preservation of rock materials

• numerical modelling

The theoretical lessons will be integrated with hand and computer exercises. A final field trip is also planned to provide a practical application of the theoretical aspects covered during the lessons.