Parametric Modelling in BIM for Structural Analysis of Masonry Vaults

The use of BIM for historical heritage structures has started to be widely diffused and referred as H-BIM. These models are usually aimed at the management and conservation of monuments; however, these can also contain the information necessary for the characterisation of a numerical structural model. This paper is focused on the interoperability between H-BIM and numerical models applied to masonry vaults, structures that typically require local safety assessments. Different degree of geometry subdivision for structural analysis of masonry vaults, has been identified and related to various numerical modelling approaches and HBIM classification. Based on this, an automatic parametric procedure specific for lunette vaults has been developed. This allows to obtain automatic three-dimensional geometric models that can be efficiently implemented in the H-BIM environment and to obtain and manage the geometric characteristics as input to the numerical modeling. Finally, the application of the methodology to the National Palace of Sintra is presented.