Environmental loading of heritage structures

This theme issue, featuring Environmental loading of heritage structures, provides a snapshot of current civil engineering approaches to assessing ageing structures under a variety of loads. The publication arose from a serendipitous sequence of interactions. Academics at the University of Plymouth were contacted by Trinity House in 2010 to investigate reported vibrations in their rock lighthouses when impacted by storm waves. A pilot study on the nearby Eddystone lighthouse captured structural response data from the catastrophic storms of 2013/2014 and paved the way for a more comprehensive project. The STORMLAMP project brought together expertise across various civil engineering disciplines, hydrodynamics, field-based structural monitoring and structural modelling, at the University of Plymouth, University of Exeter and UCL, respectively. It has investigated rock lighthouses across all three of the General Lighthouse Authorities of UK and Ireland (Trinity House, Irish Lights and the Northern Lighthouse Board). Field modal testing was undertaken at seven rock lighthouses right across this region to support the characterization of extreme impulsive breaking wave loads, and the identified modal properties have subsequently been used to validate structural models. These models have also required the best estimates of likely wave loads in order to predict maximum structural responses, provided by researchers in the team.