Final Report Summary - PROBELL (Maintenance and Protection of Bells)
Church bells are both musical instruments strongly connected to the European culture and technical structures exposed to severe loading conditions during ringing. Many famous bells are in service for centuries and on numerous bells damages occurred due to the continuous ringing. Thus the musical instrument may have been destroyed or even when repair measures could be taken, historical ornaments and inscriptions were lost in spite of high cost for repair or recasts. Fracture of clappers may lead to dangerous fall down of the heavy steel pieces.
The system bell-clapper-belfry system has been developed over the centuries, mainly based on intuition and tradition. Reasons for the damages and the influence of main parameters are widely unknown. For the nine involved SME bell foundries and clapper manufacturers it is of major interest, to develop:
- reliable procedures and subsequently
- equipment for a predictive diagnosis of damages on bells and
- tools to set up the bell system for most smooth ringing conditions.
These developments are used to:
- open a new and strong business branch by the European bell foundries by a professional service based on the elaborated knowledge in competition to non-professional amateurs
- reduce damages and thus high cost for the parishes and the bell foundries
- reduce the risk for personal and people by damaged bells or clappers
- set the ringing conditions in the smoothest way achieving at the same time a high musical quality for a better acceptance of bell ringing noise to the neighbourhood of churches
- prevent the foundries from pretensions out of their responsibilities for damages of new or repaired bells
- new standard for the installation of bells similar to the newly defined DIN4178 for church towers with bells.
The 'Maintenance and protection of bells (Probell) project strongly supports:
- the protection of European cultural heritage, by holding over the life of a large number of bells, by optimisation of ringing conditions, professional services for necessary repair measures;
- reduction of risk due to bells / clapper damage;
- maintaining a higher musical quality.
At the University of Applied Sciences Kempten, a competence centre has been established, to provide expertise to parishes, churches, offices of cultural heritage and bell experts as well as to bell foundries, clapper manufacturers and motor and control providers about the questions of bells in towers.
One major issue will to develop the competence on bells for the foundries, so that they may provide services not on the bells alone, but the belfries, motors, acoustic design of bell rooms. It is of special importance to support the partners in their work to apply the new methods in their daily work. Therefore, the responsible engineer of the project at University AS Kempten will be continuously employed at the University, to hold the special know how available for the bell community.
The project website, http://www.probell.net will be continued to provide a forum and platform to all bell interested for exchange on this matter.
The system bell-clapper-belfry system has been developed over the centuries, mainly based on intuition and tradition. Reasons for the damages and the influence of main parameters are widely unknown. For the nine involved SME bell foundries and clapper manufacturers it is of major interest, to develop:
- reliable procedures and subsequently
- equipment for a predictive diagnosis of damages on bells and
- tools to set up the bell system for most smooth ringing conditions.
These developments are used to:
- open a new and strong business branch by the European bell foundries by a professional service based on the elaborated knowledge in competition to non-professional amateurs
- reduce damages and thus high cost for the parishes and the bell foundries
- reduce the risk for personal and people by damaged bells or clappers
- set the ringing conditions in the smoothest way achieving at the same time a high musical quality for a better acceptance of bell ringing noise to the neighbourhood of churches
- prevent the foundries from pretensions out of their responsibilities for damages of new or repaired bells
- new standard for the installation of bells similar to the newly defined DIN4178 for church towers with bells.
The 'Maintenance and protection of bells (Probell) project strongly supports:
- the protection of European cultural heritage, by holding over the life of a large number of bells, by optimisation of ringing conditions, professional services for necessary repair measures;
- reduction of risk due to bells / clapper damage;
- maintaining a higher musical quality.
At the University of Applied Sciences Kempten, a competence centre has been established, to provide expertise to parishes, churches, offices of cultural heritage and bell experts as well as to bell foundries, clapper manufacturers and motor and control providers about the questions of bells in towers.
One major issue will to develop the competence on bells for the foundries, so that they may provide services not on the bells alone, but the belfries, motors, acoustic design of bell rooms. It is of special importance to support the partners in their work to apply the new methods in their daily work. Therefore, the responsible engineer of the project at University AS Kempten will be continuously employed at the University, to hold the special know how available for the bell community.
The project website, http://www.probell.net will be continued to provide a forum and platform to all bell interested for exchange on this matter.
