We are pleased to announce a new, online edition of the NICAS colloquium on Thursday 20 June 2024 from 12.00 to 13.00 hrs. The colloquium will take place online through Microsoft Teams. Throughout the year, NICAS organises a bi-weekly Colloquium consisting of two short research lectures. It provides researchers with the opportunity to present ideas for, updates on or results of their activities. The NICAS Colloquium allows people to stay informed on a regular basis about the latest developments and results of research and to exchange information and expertise.
The presenter is Siavash Maraghechi (Eindhoven University of Technology).
The chair is Frederik Vanmeert (Rijksmuseum).
► Siavash Maraghechi – How the Night Watch canvas is doing: Canvas mechanics in multiple length scales
Abstract:
The structural integrity of the canvas of the Night Watch is an essential factor regarding the safety of the loads applied to the painting by the new spring-tensioning system and the long-term stability of the canvas in terms of degradation. Careful inspection of the original canvas of the painting indicates a highly degraded and brittle state, leaving the lining canvas applied in 1975 as the main load-bearing part of the canvas system. The mechanical properties (Young’s modulus, strength, and strain at fracture) of the lining canvas of the Night Watch are experimentally assessed at three length scales, i.e., fibre, thread, and canvas. Dedicated methodologies based on in-situ micro-tensile testing are chosen or developed for each scale. By fitting a simple mathematical function to the experimental data, scaling laws are established for Young’s modulus and strength of the lining canvas of the Night Watch. These scaling laws can be used in the future to monitor the degradation extent of the lining canvas, based on a minimum number of non-invasive tests on individual fibres. Moreover, comparing the mechanical properties of the lining canvas with a similar canvas kept in less aggressive conditions at Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam sheds light on the current state of degradation of the lining canvas of the Night Watch.
Bio:
Siavash Maraghechi is a post-doctoral researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). He obtained his PhD in the mechanical engineering department in TU/e where he focused on microscopy techniques and full field methods for deformation measurements in complex materials. He entered the world of conservation science through a chemo-mechanical study of degradation of paper, where he developed a technique for accurate micro-mechanical testing of cellulose fibres, applicable to other materials such as canvas. Currently he is involved in a project concerning chemo-mechanical degradation of oil paints.