Schoenbrunn Palace - Vienna

General Information

Schönbrunn castle, Vienna, is one of the most important cultural objects of Austria, built in the 17th century. It includes a beautifully decorated roman-catholic chapel. Schönbrunn Castle is known as a ”world cultural heritage” and the most visited monument in Austria with its 1.440 imperial rooms, gardens, fountains, glasshouse and zoological garden. Next to the main entrance into the Castle, passing the cashier and the “sala terrena” the Chapel of the Castle is situated, which also has access from outside. The Chapel is situated in a north western corner of the Castle and in this way exposed to wind and rain, which normally comes from western directions in Austria. Problems arise from the humidity rising in the wall, which attack the marble decorations, for example. In this project, the actual condition with respect to temperature, air-flow, air humidity and wall humidity is monitored in the chapel.

Activities within the Project

To improve the situation, the sockets of the outer, cold walls were (electrically) heated by an electric coil, 30m, of about 50Watt/m, in total 1,5kW, which are in contact with cold ground in order to stop condensation, rising humidity and salt migration because of temperature of the heated sockets are above dew point. Therefore, destroying bench heating has to be avoided. A second way of possibly getting rid of rising humidity could be an electric osmotic system, which was installed in another corner of the chapel on the right hand side of the entrance of the court yard, whereas on the left hand side is installed the electric “wall heating” system. This osmotic system needs no electrodes in the wall, therefore it is easy to install. Also for the sake of research work this installation was done together with a monitoring system with TAE and physical measuring of humidity of the influenced walls by drilling probes, since humidity in historic buildings often occurs and is discussed very controversially.
In the humid sockets of the marble, humidity sensors as electrodes (TAE), were installed in different depth of the wall (5 cm and 20 cm) and should show the effect of both interventions: heating the sockets on the left hand side of the entrance and using an osmotic system on the cold right hand side. To get best information of necessary room climate situation, temperature sensors, dew point sen-sors and rel. Humidity sensors and air velocity sensors in the church at 2 two different places and temperature and rel. humidity sensors outside were mounted, in order to monitor the micro climatic situation in the church, corresponding to outer weather situation or the use of the chapel.

Details on that case study and the ongoing monitoring campaign could be found here: www.shm.uni-stuttgart.de

Project Report

• Case Study 5: Schoenbrunn Palace, Vienna

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