One timber roof of Venice Arsenal: technological characteristics and assessment of thermohygrometric behaviour

The discovery of original trusses inside a dock of the Venice Arsenal, the Tesone 111, appeared to be of great importance, a pointer to the architectural techniques used during the Renaissance in Venice and to the attempts of preserving the authentic aspects of a structure which has been changed many times since then by the continuous use that has been made of it. The peculiar climatic conditions in Venice and especially in the Arsenal dock has brought out the need for interventions in the structure to restore suitable conditions for the trusses. The moisture content is presently really dangerous for their stability and, in future, a suitable use of the Tesone itself would be at risk because the trusses need to be maintained in an ideal microclimate to avoid any possible damage. The drying procedure for the trusses must be undertaken in such a way that it can be done at the earliest, at the shortest possible notice without further compromising their stability. Preliminary applications of theoretical models of thermal-fluid-dynamics to assess air circulation inside the Tesone, possibly induced by mechanical devices to dry the trusses are presented in this chapter.