An article by three of our group colleagues: Dr. Jamalabadi, Dr. Zabari and Prof. Bratasz, concerning the fracture saturation in panel paintings has just been published in Wood Science and Technology.
Panel paintings are multi-layer structures composed of wood support, preparatory layer, paint and varnish. Due to their vulnerability to humidity fluctuations in their environment, most of the panel paintings in museum collections are covered with a mesh of cracks, the so-called craquelure. Previous studies (Krzemień et al., 2016) proved that the craquelure pattern stabilizes after a certain number of cyclic fluctuations in the relative humidity. Therefore, the characteristic crack mesh is probably created in the first years after the painting was executed.
In a freshly published paper, our researchers analyzed the structural response of a paint layer covered with a network of rectangular cracks under environmental loadings. For this purpose, they used a three-dimensional numerical model, which was confronted with the results obtained from laboratory measurements of the mock-up of panel painting subjected to extreme humidity fluctuations in an environmental chamber. The research was conducted as a part of the GRIEG project.
Obtained results shed more light on the processes responsible for the creation of craquelure, and thanks to the fact that it has been published in the form of open access, each of our readers can get familiar with it!
Link to the article: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00226-021-01328-z