Work in Heritage Assessment is carried out on the application of new specific technologies for the assessment of heritage elements as isolated construction systems, ornamental, or historic buildings as a whole. This is accompanied by complementary studies describing a set of construction-related activities: detailed inventories and cataloguing, as well as heritage subgroups, records of interventions and their impact.

The technologies and methodologies which are improved and developed for Heritage Assessment are classified as follows:

• Non-Destructive Tests applied to the diagnosis of materials and structural elements that belong to the historic building Heritage: sonic auscultation, ultrasonic inspection, georadar survey, infrared thermography, optical and electronic microscopy.
• Quasi-nondestructive tests used in characterising the mechanics of building structures: drill penetrometer, flat jack test.
• Structural and environmental monitoring to assess fissures and pathologies appearing in other elements or present in the foundations
• Static and dynamic structural analysis aided by finite element models and numeric simulation.
• Historic and artistic assessment based on specific studies of the monument having heritage value, which include: detailed inventories, cataloguing, record of interventions, impact of new interventions and applications and architectonic and decorative studies.

This area will not carry out any activity that could lead to a conflict of interests with the Institute’s work as a Control Body, with regard to the products assessed, in accordance with ENAC requirements laid out in PE-ENAC-OC/01.