Using digital modelling for the partial reconstruction of Sheikh al-Arab Hammam citadel, situated in Farshout, Qena, Egypt

This article proposes the virtual partially reconstruction of the missed architectural units of the citadel of Sheikh al-Arab Hammam that is located in the western mountainside, north of al-Arki village in Farshout, Qena, Egypt. In order to achieve this, the following methodology was followed: Evaluation of the current state of the citadel by two methods: firstly, evaluation of building materials by several scientific techniques, and secondly, evaluation of the structural condition of the building by numerical analysis based on finite elements method (F.E.M.). This research presents the virtual reconstruction of the citadel by Building Information Modeling, “BIM”. A 3D virtual reconstruction of the citadel has been based on the archived documents in National Books and Documents House. AutoCAD (2022), Extended 3D Analysis of Building System (ETABS-2023), and Autodesk 3D Max (2022) were used to get plans, elevations, and details of the citadel with real dimensions and the appropriate drawing scale, which aim to revive the citadel and provide a way to document it. By evaluating the current status of the citadel, it was found that there are weaknesses in the properties of building materials such as High porosity and water absorption and low resistance to compressive stresses, as well as the exposure of most of the citadel walls to tensile stresses higher than the permissible limit, in addition to the missing architectural units. The study concluded that it is necessary to improve the properties of building materials and carry out restoration work for the various symptoms of damage.