Monitoring Climate-Induced Physical Damage in Art Objects

Implementing more sustainable climate control strategies requires knowledge of potential damage in art objects correlated with environmental fluctuations beyond existing climate conditions. Direct monitoring of changes in susceptible artifacts is useful in assessing risk of climate induced damage.

Monitoring can be performed using methods that are quantitative, that collect data over time (ideally offering continuous measurements), and that are sufficiently sensitive to inform of changes in an object well before they become visible. Recording climate-induced micro-changes can also serve as an early warning system when new climate control strategies are introduced, validate the results of applied computer modelling, and evaluate the quality of existing damage criteria.

• Establish reliability and reproducibility of different methods in recording condition changes and finding the correlation between results obtained with these methods
• Establish relationship between micro-damage development and climatic conditions for susceptible wooden objects
• Assess the variety and range of mechanical damages occurring in the pilot study collection that can be attributed to climate fluctuations
• Contribute to guidelines that assesses the correlation, causality, credibility, and uncertainty of climate induced change/damage in objects for application by other institutions or individuals
• Explore evidence base for climatic proofing in objects

The study was designed to use methods most suitable to capturing different climate-induced phenomena on wooden objects. Each technique was selected as a means of effectively measuring a particular category of damage:

• 3D scanning to detect overall deformation
• time-lapse photography to identify cracking of decorative layers
• acoustic emission to evaluate fracturing of wood

To some extent, all techniques are complementary but have varying sensitivities to the different types of damage.

The results from our controlled experiments show that by using proper monitoring technique and analysis tools it is possible to effectively monitor response of wooden art objects to climatic variations.

In our study objects experienced climate induced brittle cracking, but only to a very limited extent and moderate fluctuations of relative humidity did not result in the development of new fractures or crack propagation. The results obtained so far constitute a unique case study for questioning existing and developing new and climate control strategies for museum collections and may contribute to verifying existing mechanical models of object damage.