The diagnostic investigations plan for historic masonry buildings: The role of sonic tests and other minor destructive techniques

After several experiences collected in the cultural heritage preservation field, this work contains a wide reflection on the investigations plan for assessing the historic building characteristics and more detailed considera-tions on a non-destructive technique: the sonic test. The relationship between non-destructive and minor-destructive tests has been deeply studied by several authors and the complementary use of methods providing qualitative and quantitative results is a premise followed by the experts involved in the architectural heritage conservation. In the following paragraphs, the difficulties for organizing a reliable diagnostic plan are present-ed and some indications for exploiting the main potentialities of the tests are drawn out.