Baroque Timber Roofs without a Continuous Tiebeam

In 2007, the authors have conducted a survey of baroque timber roof constructions in Southern Bavaria, and inspected around 40 church roofs (Holzer et al. 2008). An observation made was that a considerable percentage of the roof trusses analyzed are characterized by the lack of a continuous tie beam. We classify these roof structures according to their load-carrying characteristics and demonstrate, by some preliminary numerical analyses that different principal load-carrying mechanisms can be activated. Up to date only little research has been carried out to determine the actual load-carrying mechanisms of baroque roofs, which exhibit a complex three-dimensional behaviour. For a better understanding of the structural behaviour a full-scale loading test was performed on a typical baroque roof. Based on the results we suggest an improved non-linear model for traditional carpentry structures. In a last step and in view of a realistic computation, some data obtained by non-destructive test methods are presented.