Non-destructive and laboratory evaluation of strength of decayed wood members in a historic construction located in Gorgan (North of Iran)

The House of Bagheri is one of the most important buildings in Gorgan city (North of Iran) which is a tourist site and the House is a Cultural Heritage Construction. Solid wood was utilized extensively for structural members in association with other traditional materials. It has been exposed to natural environmental conditions for a long time, so some faults have developed including decay of the wooden members. The mechanical properties of decayed members have been measured in laboratory tests and the buildings have been non-destructively evaluated. Samples from the buildings were prepared which are representative of the whole structure. Flexure and compression tests were then performed on these samples. The results of NDE (nondestructive evaluation) tests on the samples were correlated with those on the buildings.