Construction Technology - Restoring the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Technology@lemmy.world – 101 points – 11 months ago

How Engineers Straightened the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Interesting dive into the technology, troubleshooting, and process behind stabilizing the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

In the 90's, engineers discovered that the tower was extremely close to collapse, within just a few % of the structural limit. They spent a decade researching, experimenting, and developing a solution to permanently stabilize the tower, while also preserving it's unique features.

It was extremely close to collapse, so they spent a DECADE researching. That’s ballsy.

It was extremely close to collapse after over 800 years. They had time, just not an unlimited amount of it. People with a lifetime of experience and education knew how to work through the issue, and had a good idea of how long they had.

They closed the area off, did some tests, and worked slowly because some of their ideas made the problem worse. You don't want to rush solutions on completely unique problems, with completely unique artifacts.

That does make sense, interesting stuff.

They did so with temporary weights or other methods like cables to make sure it didn't get worse or collapse.

It's not a very long video :/ it's mentioned in there.

Cables were just there in case the tower tipped over.

It was more a combination of temporary weights and freezing the ground.