Material Characterization of Ancient Mortar and Renovation of Heritage Structures for Sustainability—A State-of-the-Art Review

Abstract

With the newly formed Telangana State, there comes the responsibility to protect and maintain the culture and heritage of historic structures to attract tourism and to a broader aspect to be able to protect the heritage for the generations to come and maintain sustainability. It is important to renovate the heritage structures which are under the verge of collapse or collapsed already. For renovation, there should be availability of the same ancient materials for reconstruction. But, as many of the ancient materials used are not available currently, there is a need to characterize those materials and develop alternate materials compatible with the ancient materials exhibiting similar strength and durability characteristics. The present paper is a state-of-the-art paper that conglomerates the studies on repair of heritage structures from material point of view, thereby aiming at developing a methodology which would standardize a repair strategy on ancient mortar in heritage structures in the Telangana State in particular and the country in general.