A multidisciplinary approach integrating geomatics, dynamic field testing and finite element modelling to evaluate the conservation state of the guimaraes castle's tower keep

The development of realistic numerical models able to replicate as closely as possible the actual structural behaviour of heritage buildings is crucial for a thorough assessment of their structur-al performance against exceptional scenarios. In this regard, higher accuracy can be achieved by leveraging a multidisciplinary approach that integrates multiple contributions from different fields, such as geomatics, dynamics and computational modelling. In the present paper, this strategy is applied to the tower keep of the Guimarães castle, in Por-tugal, a masonry fortified structure dating back to the X century. Starting from an accurate la-ser scanner survey, a detailed numerical model has been created resorting to efficient algo-rithms able to represent complex situations. Furthermore, by exploiting the dynamic properties extracted from the processing of vibration data collected during field dynamic testing, the me-chanical characteristics of the constituent materials of the tower have been estimated by means of a model updating technique embedded in a trust-region scheme implemented in the NOSA-ITACA code. The results obtained so far allowed to establish valuable baseline information that will be of pivotal importance to catch possible changes in the tower's response and to perform more in-depth structural analyses.