Resist “by shape”. Shell vaults in historical Sicilian construction: the case of Partinico

Abstract

The paper is aimed to analyse “thin shells” particularly in the sense of “realine vaults” that represent a particular building element related to Partinico, a small town near Palermo, Sicily. According to literature and analysis of case study there was in Partinico, especially between the 18th and 19th centuries, a wide spread of the building technique also known as “tabicada”, derived from Catalan workers who still make extensive use of it untill today. Through reliefs and in-depth analyses of more than 100 realine vaults located both in the historic city center and in the countryside; both in religious and civil buildings, it was possible to recognize common characteristics that allow us to understand how these “realine vaults” -more than two centuries after their construction- can still support themselves and the accidental loads. The creation and analysis of structural model of vaults, in particular the study of parameters and the measurements obtained by mathematical processes, have been described in the last part of the paper.