1 Damage to historic facades: a case study in the historic center of Viçosa do Ceará Amanda Daniel FONTENELE 1 , Vanessa Ribeiro CAMPOS 2 , Esequiel Fernandes Teixeira MESQUITA 3 1 Civil Engineering Graduate Program, Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil, amanda_fontenele@alu.ufc.br 2 Civil Engineering Graduate Program, Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil, vanessa.campos@ufc.br 3 Laboratory of Rehabilitation and Durability of Constructions, Federal University of Ceará, Russas, Brazil, emesquita@ufc.br Abstract: Among the elements that make up a building, the facade represents the architectural identity exposing traces of the constructive patterns of an era and are the main means to obtain information about the constructive characteristics and evaluate the state of conservation of historic constructions. Thus, this research, through the inspection of 48 facades in 25 buildings in the historic center of Viçosa do Ceará, identified the mechanisms of existing damage, considering the constructive characteristics of the elements that make up these facades, thus contributing to the knowledge of the behavior of historic facades and consequently to the preservation and memory of the historic heritage Brazilian. The most frequent damage to the buildings inspected is due to climatic factors of the city, associated with the distribution of elements of the facades. These factors influence the deterioration of the building causing cracks in the masonry, mortar detachment, paint peeling and surface condensation. Despite being degraded to the urban context in which they are inserted, the inspected facades present a regular state of conservation, when considering the time of existence and exposure to climatic agents and can last for centuries if periodic maintenance is made. Thus, it is essential to continuously monitor the presence of damage to the historic heritage built. Keywords: Historic facades; Masonry walls; Conservation state 1. Introduction The facades of a building are the elements that limit the internal spaces and the external space. However, the importance of facades goes beyond sealing and contact, they play an important role in the configuration of landscapes or urban spaces, both by the registration of their former inhabitants and by the testimony of an era of society (TELES, 2010). With this, the facades acquire cultural value. However, when the historic buildings are observed in a state of degradation and losing the representativeness of the period to which they were built, the facades of these buildings are the most affected. Various damage can occur on building facades due to different causes such as weather, overload, humidity, thermal variations, movement, and soil accommodation. Such factors, connected to materials, inadequacy execution and maintenance, imply the progressive emergence of anomalies (BAUER; CASTRO; SILVA, 2015). According to Lopes (2008), the walls of historic masonry buildings have low resistance to traction, reduced ductility, and high stiffness properties, ensuring that this type of constructive solution has low power dissipation capacity and causes a lot of damage. In addition, Bauer, Castro, and Silva (2015), states that high thermal stresses and mechanical tensile stresses can cause adhesion failures between the various layers of the facade walls and in a scenario of propagation of this eventual failure may generate a process of progressive degradation that will compromise the overall performance of the facade. Some facades may present detachment and/or progressive collapse of the masonry walls after the development of the damage in the plane, followed by the complete collapse of the structures, that is, the mechanism of the damage occurs from the plane to the outside. Shear stress can promote the appearance https://doi.org/10.4322/CINPAR.2022.012