Numerical and Experimental Multi-Approach Models for a Stone Pinnacle Reinforcement

The church of Saint Felix in Girona (Spain) is crowned by an octagonal bell tower with a stone pinnacle at each corner. I was built with dry-joined stone masonry. To reinforce the connection between the stone blocs of the pinnacles, a wooden log was placed in the cen-ter, spanning the stone structure, thorough a central hole carved into it. Nowadays, the inner structure has completely disappeared. During the maintenance and repair works, it was decided to restore the reinforcement’s functionality by installing a titanium bar. To determine the length of this metallic inclusion, a study was conducted that includes the effect of gravitational, wind and seismic forces. Due to the uncertainty associated to such model, a multi-approach was carried out combining numerical and scaled experimental models. Experimental results demonstrate that pinnacles need to be reinforced with a ti-tanium bar of the length of its height.