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This book aims to strengthen the knowledge base dealing with materials in historic structures, their properties, technology of use and conservation, and their performance in transforming the environment. Many of the papers in this volume were presented during the European Geosciences Union General Assembly (sessions: GMPV10 "Challenges to historical materials in urban/anthropic environments", and ERE10 "Natural stone resources for historical monuments") held in Vienna, Austria (2006, 2007 and 2008. In addition to these a number of invited contributions have been chosen to fill gaps in the coverage of the meetings' original aims.The book consists of 17 chapters dealing with inorganic construction materials used in historic structures such as adobe, stone, brick, binders, concrete and plasters. The aims of the editors were to select contributions describing various materials and not to restrict the book to one specific historic material. The idea behind this approach was that at most historic sites a great variety of materials are used; and so a variety of approaches are needed to understand the present state and future changes in the materials. The authors are leading experts from various backgrounds in the fields of architecture, civil engineering, geology, materials and conservation science. This multi-disciplinary approach allowed for the coverage of historic materials from various aspects.The Part I of the book deals with earth as the most ubiquitous and versatile building material. One paper focuses on a UNESCO World Heritage Site in earthen architecture built by the Arabs: the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. The other two papers focus on brick; and a description is given of its manufacturing processes and properties. A case study from a World Heritage Site in Vietnam draws attention to the wide-range of uses of this historic material.The Part II deals with natural stone. Natural stone was a particularly important construction material used for numerous locally and globally well-known monuments. The papers on this historical construction material cover a wide geographical range throughout Europe and provide examples of various techniques used in diagnostic studies.The Part III covers binders, concrete and the combination of different techniques; it provides some of the innovative aspects of the book: the view on the evolution of the binder based materials from Roman times till the present; opus craetecicum and Preface vii About the EditorsDiplom-Ingenieur Maria Bostenaru Dan obtained an engineering degree in architecture, with specialisation in urban planning, in 1999 from the Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Germany. She was involved, within the Collaborative Research Centre SFB (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft funding) 315 "Preservation of historically relevant constructions", in a building survey in Poland, and was employed as part time research assistant in the SFB 461 "Strong earthquakes: from geosciences to civil engineering" both at the Universität Karlsruhe. She also started as a student research on sociology...

Different ready-made, commercially available (in Hungary) stone repair mortars and laboratory mixed, newly designed mortars were tested under different conditions in the laboratory. the mortars had different aggregate and binder content. the aim of the research was to understand the influence of the different binders and various amounts of limestone aggregate on the properties of mortar. During the laboratory tests more than 550 specimens were analyzed according to the en standards. Pure repair mortars have higher strength and lower capillary activity than the Hungarian porous limestones. Added aggregate can increase the compatibility of the commercially available mortars, but at some mortars it may result a drastic decrease in strength. newly designed mortars have similar mechanical and hydrotechnical properties to the tested porous limestones.