The Climate4Wood project : a methodology for the assessment of relevant criteria to predict the behaviour of decorated oak wooden panels

The Climate4Wood project aims at identifying the effects of climate fluctuations, i.e. temperat ure and relative humidity fluctuations, on damage resistance of museum collections. The results will be used to formulate reliable standards for climate fluctuations in sustainable museological environments. By means of a museum , modelling and experimental study climate related damage of decorated oak wooden panels in furniture and paintings is addressed from a combined conservation and engineering approach. In this research project the overall goal is to couple data obtained from a museum study, thermo -hy gro - mechanical modelling study, in -situ studies and experimental work to study the acceptable relative humidity and temperature fluctuation s for susceptible decorated oak wooden panels . All three studies complement each other and the r esults of one study w ill be used as i nput or validation of the others . This p resentation outlines the methodology for the assessment of relevant criteria to predic t the damage d state of oak wood en artefacts . These keys are the guiding themes within the three studies. They have been determined based on a systematic analysis of decorated oak wooden panels , referred to as the museum study . The museum study was performed in the Rijksmuseum collection on two groups of Dutch decorated wooden panels: doors from cabinets and Dutch 17 th century panel paintings, involving 70 furniture panels and 251 panel paintings. The results from the museum study show that shrinkage and failing joints are the most common types of damage registered on decorated wooden panels, and the weakest p oint of the objects are the glue joints between the different members of the panel, this includes glue joints in the parallel as well as perpendicular wood grain direction. The complexity of the structure is of great importance for the understanding of the object’s failure criteria and should therefore be considered . The focus on this presentation will be on the result of the panel paintings survey and how it serves as an input for the modelling and experimental studies to be numerically and experimentall y analysed.