Structural Engineering Thesis (Historic Buildings)

Peleus

Hi everyone. I am a 4th year Structural Engineering student and for my last year I am writing a thesis on the loose topic of "Structural behaviour of historic buildings." Right now I have to narrow it down to something specific.

I was thinking of doing something on industrial era iron roof trusses (eg: Pearse and Heuston stations) cos i find them really interesting and I like analysing trusses. Would anyone have any other good examples of these? Also, does anyone have any tips on what about them I could study? I could do a finite element analysis of one of these trusses but I still don't know what I want to prove/investigate/analyse.

I was also looking at Georgian domes (eg: Dublin city hall) and was thinking of doing something similar on that (computer model and testing under loading). Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance

bnt

One historic building in Ireland with iron roof trusses is Russborough House in Co. Wicklow. It was damaged in a fire in 2010, 80% of the roof in the west wing was lost, and its restoration was partly the subject of an Irish Times article last week. I thought of it because I wonder whether the restoration work would mean a better chance of access or not?

Peleus

Thanks bnt, I read the article and a few other pages on the house. I've been reading a few papers on Iron trusses and it seems my best bet is to find an example of one in disrepair or one that has been recently restored. So this is perfect, thanks I am meeting with my supervisor next week so hopefully he can give me some advice on how to proceed.