Q&A with Thomas Gernay - Next Steps after the Notre Dame Cathedral Fire
and trying to assess the residual stability and capacity of the structure.
That will be a very complex task that will take some time, so first of all, we need to
look at the fire event itself and understand where the fire occurred and how it spread
and what type of heat was generated, what was the temperature environment that was generated.
So it seems as of now that the fire remained mostly contained in the wooden roof structure
where most of the fuel was present as the combustible material, and that there was not
that much burning at the ground level that would have heated parts of the stone structure.
So the cathedral was mostly made of stone, which is an incombustible material but is
still challenged by heat.
If there is significant heating, the stone can crack, it can be damaged, and it can need
repair.
Given the huge amount of stone, the huge mass, it's possible that the damage would have been
limited, but this needs to be assessed.
So fire generates heat that damages the material and also that leads to thermal expansion and
movement in the structure.
So we also need to look at how the structure might have moved both during the heating and
during the cooling because when the fire brigades are using cold water to extinguish the fire
that might create a thermal shock on the materials, stones, that also leads to cracking and thermal
movements.
There might also be movements on the supports, as well as damage from debris, and I'm thinking
of course of this spiral that collapsed.
It's collapsed by itself, which could have damaged part of the structure.
So assessing the residual stability will require assessing the fire severity, the thermal environment,
the heat that was generated, as well as the damage to the materials and the movement of
the structure under this heat.
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