Injection Grouts for the Conservation of Architectural Surfaces: Research and Evaluation

New procedures to evaluate injection grouts used for the conservation of plasters, wall paintings, mosaics

Project Details

Detail of a person's hands injecting grout into a floor mosaic

About

Goal

Injection Grouts for the Conservation of Architectural Surfaces sought to provide reliable tools for conservation scientists in the lab and conservators in the field to test, evaluate, and select injection grouts used to fill voids and reattach delaminated plasters, wall paintings, and mosaics. At the time, there were no standardized tests specifically for injection grouts used in conservation of architectural surfaces, and little published information on field testing.

Outcomes

  • Background research, including a review of published literature yielded a comprehensive bibliography and a drafted literature review, which provided a summary of current materials and practices for grouting.
  • Publication of 2006 test results of injection grouts for architectural surfaces, for laboratory and field use
  • Three two-day workshops entitled “Injection Grouts for the Conservation of Architectural Surfaces” were held in May 2009, November 2009, and June 2010, providing an overview of the characteristics, properties, and uses of injection grouts for the conservation of architectural surfaces.
  • In 2013 a manual of laboratory and field test methods, Evaluation of Lime-Based Hydraulic Injection Grouts for the Conservation of Architectural Surfaces, was published and made available as a free online publication and a print-on-demand publication.

Background

Seminal research on injection grouts for the conservation of architectural surfaces was conducted by ICCROM in the early 1980s, coinciding with the movement toward preserving these architectural features in their original context, rather than detaching them, as was previously practiced. Following development of hydraulic lime-based grout formulations at ICCROM in the early 1980s, numerous variations of these injection grouts have been produced and widely used over the past twenty-five years, including a number of commercially produced grout mixtures.

Project History

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