Editorial: built heritage

Built Heritage is part of the history of nations and of people which must be lived and become part of its present and future fabric. The preservation of the heritage encourages civil engineers in the fields of sustainable construction and environmental engineering to study the durability of historical structures and materials (concretes, rocks, steels, wood, etc.) which contribute for making local and economy active in the present for the future. This special issue of European Journal of Environmental and Civil Engineering is devoted to papers related to the built heritage conservation: diagnosis, prescription and expertise, research, standardisation, processing and monitoring. Studies aim to understand the original materials, the context of their use and the current state of decay (mapping and characterisation of damages), the analysis of the main causes of this degradation taking into account the history of the monuments (construction and subsequent restorations) and environmental conditions. Research demonstrates that the process involved in the degradation of a built heritage requires a multidisciplinary approach from different research fields: geology, civil engineering, chemistry, archaeology, material science, architecture and computer science. This issue includes selected papers presented during the conference Conserbâti held in Orléans, France, 1–2 April 2010 and through the usual reviewer’s evaluation level. The scientific committee members chaired by Madame G. Arliguie are highly acknowledged for their excellent work. Conserbâti was a thematic conference of the French University association of Civil Engineering and was supported by many companies. Over 80 experts in the field of conservation of built heritage attended the conference and presented 30 conferences and eight keynotes lectures. Three papers deal with stone in the monuments: thermo-hydric behaviour of lime mortars used for the restoration, 3D digital techniques for the reconstruction of the monument and the thermo-hydromechanical numerical modelling of the stone masonry wall assembled by a mortar. Two papers treat the influence of the addition of polymer in mortars on the microstructure and mechanical properties of hardened materials and the durability of cement mortars under wetting-drying cycles. Two papers deals with concrete: how early-age behaviour can lead to damage risks at short and long term concrete structures and how the Monte-Carlo method can be applied to analyse the durability of concrete structure subjected to lixiviation. European Journal of Environmental and Civil Engineering Vol. 16, No. 5, May 2012, 525–526