Agent of Deterioration #10: Physical Forces

This is the last post related to the Agents of Deterioration as defined by the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) in Ottawa.  If you want to learn more about CCI, see their website or our April 29th blog post.  

Physical Forces very visibly impact your collection. CCI has identified 5 force related impacts on museum artifacts.  They are:

• Impact is when something strikes an artifact which may result in compression, punctures, dents, tears, cracks, chips, scratches, and abrasion; an example of this is dropping.
• Shock is the result of a large impact.  Shock is a big cause of damage during shipment of objects.
• Vibration is the oscillating motion of an object relative to a fixed point of reference.
• Pressure is force applied on an object.
• Abrasion occurs whenever there is movement between two objects in contact.

Knowing these specific forces on your collection, museum staff and volunteers can learn about ways in which they can prevent these from affecting the artifacts. They can change how they place objects, transport objects, or handle them in order to prevent Physical Forces affecting your precious collections.

The form in which each of these forces come to effect your objects vary. CCI has classified some avenues in which these forces may come in.

Catastrophic Forces(Low Incidence, High Intensity)	Working Forces(High Incidence, Moderate-to-High Intensity)	Cumulative Forces(High Incidence, Low Intensity)	Low-level Forces(Variable Incidence, Low Intensity)
Earthquake	Handling	Handling	Building Vibration
War & Vandalism	Transit (in-house)	Shipping	Construction Vibration
Shipment Disasters	Shipment	Gravity	Acoustic Sources
Extreme Handling Hazards	Gravitational Loads
Roof Collapse	Construction Vibration
Floor Collapse	Excavation

Now that we can see how these stresses present themselves, we can implement strategies to reduce them.

CCI says that there are 3 ways to control damage from Physical Forces:

     1.  Building

     2.  Hardware

     3.  Procedures

Building control strategies are the most expensive to implement; hardware and procedure control strategies are cheaper.

Building control strategies may include ensuring that your building floor is of adequate strength to hold what you are going to place on it; ensuring that your building is prepared for any envirionmental situations, such as snow and its associated weight or earthquakes.

Hardware control strategies may include distancing objects from the public via barrier or cases; pack objects with the appropriate materials; and use proper mounts and materials of all objects.

Procedural control strategies may include identifying and protecting fragile objects from routine handling while in storage, display, or during transport by training staff or volunteers in the correct manner to complete such tasks.

Physical forces can be one of the easiest and hardest Agent of Deterioration to prevent.

This topic is HUGE and the distilled version misses much.  Check out the CCI website on Physical Forces for more in-depth information. 

Control strategies, such as display cases keep grubby hands off!