Nondeformability of Ventilated and Mortar-Embedded Marble Facade Panels.

It is known that in historical buildings as well as new buildings, facade claddings consisting of marble panels, are prone to damage patterns such as softening, crack formation, and bowing. The degree of damage is apparently dependent on the location of the building, the external climatic conditions, and the type of fastening of the facade panels. In this article, it is examined by means of nonstationary thermal simulation, to which extent the temperature fields, which develop in the facade panel, have an effect on the damage of the panel. It is shown that the diurnal and annual amplitude of the panel temperature induced by solar flux, external air temperature fluctuations, and long-wave input radiation and irradiation have a substantial influence on the damage process. On the example of the simulation of the thermal behavior of a facade panel for the building locations in Athens, Greece, Vienna, Austria, and Helsinki, Finland, it is shown that the observed increase of the susceptibility of marble facades to damages can be explained with the increase of the geographical latitude through the differences in the external climatic conditions. It is strongly recommended that architects and restorers install specific marble facade panels (like carrara marble) in close thermal contact with the wall behind, since this reduces the susceptibility of the facade to damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]