The Royal Chapel of National Palace of Sintra: a study of timber elements

Este trabalho foi financiado pelo Concurso Anual para Projetos de Investigação, Desenvolvimento, Inovação e Criação Artística (IDI&CA) 2019 do Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa. Código de referência IPL/2019/TEC-TIMBER_ISELOn-site inspection work in the historical buildings requires a basic scientific knowledge to be conducted with technical and scientific credibility. This need becomes so absolute when the object is the historical heritage of high value. This paper presents the work of inspection and evalu-ation of timber elements held in the tribune of the Royal Chapel of the National Palace of Sintra, Portugal. It was carried out within the scope of a master's dissertation presented to the Higher Institute of Engineering of Lisbon in 2018. This palace is one of the most important Portuguese monuments, having been linked to the national history by many events. The Royal Chapel has several dates of construction and past interventions dated from the thirteenth to the fifteenth cen-turies. The Gothic, Mudejar and Manueline styles are perfectly combined in there. The work consisted in the characterization and structural assessment of tribune´s first floor beams. Inspections took place between January and May 2018. The wood present in most of the structural and secondary elements is coniferous, most of which has been identified as Pinus Syl-vestris, L. The work was carried out in situ by visual inspection and by non-destructive and semi-destructive tests. Water content, drill resistance and penetration resistance were measured. Phys-ical-mechanical properties of the timber members were estimated based on the in-situ measure-ments and the scientific literature. Visual strength grading was also applied to the floor beams. From the results obtained several important information were taken. Report and recommendations were presented as the conclusion of the study.