Abstract
The famous statue Pietà Rondanini by Michelangelo Buonarroti (sculpted in the second half of 1500) was recently moved to a new position in a museum in Castello Sforzesco, Milan. In this new location, the vibration levels, due to the close presence of underground tracks, has been considered worthy of specific attention; therefore both the Municipality of Milan and the Cultural Heritage ministry asked for the design of a new base capable of mitigating the vibration input to the statue. In addition, since Milan is a seismic area (although with moderate risk), it was also required to include in the base design an anti-seismic device. The protection from the underground action (which is in the range between 16 and 80 Hz) requires the development of a system with low natural frequency and rather limited damping, to have a steep filtering after resonance. However in case of an earthquake, the low frequency range would be strongly excited, with the eventual risk of an extreme event like rocking. A second device is thus introduced to protect the statue from earthquakes, consisting in a low friction slide of the same type as those used to protect buildings from the same kind of events. The coupling between the two types of protection imposed a careful design and testing of the complete system made up of the base and the statue. The design of the base was developed by means of an experimental-numerical approach. A measuring campaign using a large 6 degrees of freedom shaking table was used to test a full scale prototype of the base supporting a marble 1:1 copy of the statue. A multibody model of the full installation (complete base and statue) was developed, qualified by means of experimental data, and used to optimize the parameters, such as the mass distribution, positions of the elastomeric supports and the damping of the devices. The final system is now installed in the museum, protecting the Pietà.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Silva, Vibration and Noise Handbook, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, 2005
Zhong-Ming, X., Xuan, C., Zi-Liang, Y.: The study displacement spectrum on sliding base isolation. In: 6th International Conference on Advance in Experimental Structural Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, United States, 2015
Vestorni, F., Di Cintio, S.: Base isolation for seismic protection of statues. In: 12th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Auckland, New Zealand, 2000
Petrovcic, S., Koren, D., Kilar, V.: Applicability of base isolation made of elastomeric isolators for the protection of cultural heritage. Urban Challenge, 20(1), 220–228 (2009)
Girish, M., Pranesh, M.: Sliding isolation systems: state-of-the-art review. J. Mech. Civil Eng. 2278–1684, 30–35 (2013)
Jampole, E.A., Swensen, S.D., Fell, B., Miranda, E., Deierlein, G.G.: Dynamic testing of a low-cost sliding isolation system for light-frame residential structures. In: Tenth U.S. National Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Frontiers of Earthquake Engineering, Anchorage, Alaska, 21–25 July 2014
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Municipality of Milano for the financial support and the precious control role, then CESI Ricerche, THK, Miyamoto and the Conservation Institute of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage (ISCR) for the precious cooperation offered through the different activities of the project.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Cigada, A., Sabbioni, E., Siami, A., Zappa, E. (2016). Modeling and Testing of the Anti-Vibration Base for Michelangelo’s Pietà Rondanini. In: Di Miao, D., Tarazaga, P., Castellini, P. (eds) Special Topics in Structural Dynamics, Volume 6. Conference Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Mechanics Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29910-5_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29910-5_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-29909-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-29910-5
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)