Structural Test on a historic ceiling

For the structure testing, a surface load was applied to the ceiling via four hydraulic cylinders. Several load levels were applied and held. The ceiling was relieved between the load levels.

The upper part of the structure for transferring the load to the ceiling can be seen in Figure 1. Figure 2 shows the lower part under the ceiling with the hydraulic cylinders.

In addition to the conventional tactile measurement methods using displacement transducers, an optical VIC-3D image correlation system was used to detect cracks and measure the deformation of the ceiling. The test setup with cameras, lighting (Blue-X-Focus), stereo beams and speckle pattern on the ceiling can be seen in Figure 3.