"We have been cooperating with the Archdiocese of Prague for six years now and it is an honour for us to participate in the effort to preserve this exceptional bell in the best possible condition so that we can continue to hear its beautiful sound," says doc. Ing. Jan Siegl, CSc., from the Department of Materials of the FNSPE, under whose supervision the technical condition of the bell is being assessed. As part of the analysis of the bell's condition, materials engineering experts from FNSPE confirmed that the breakage of its heart in 2002 was caused by material fatigue. At the same time, they concluded that further work was necessary to assess not only the condition of the bell but also its interaction with the heart during ringing.
The results obtained during 2016 to 2018 have led to the conclusion that the continued safe operation of the Zikmund Bell will require an inspection of the heart and its suspension. In order to verify these conclusions, specialists from the "European Competence Center for Bells ECC - ProBell" at the University of Kempten in Germany were also invited.
Subsequently, a team of scientists from FNSPE, namely Ing. Ondřej Kovářík, Ph.D., doc. Ing. Jan Siegl, CSc., prof. Dr. Ing. Petr Haušild and Ing. Jaroslav Čech, Ph.D., developed the methodology of measuring the bell dynamics, which served as a basis for the necessary adjustments to the heart of the bell implemented in autumn 2019. The experts from FNSPE were joined by Ing. Jaroslav Šedina, Ph.D., from the Department of Geomatics of the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University, who carried out scanning of the bell in order to observe its possible changes and photogrammetric measurement of the bell's wreath.
Cooperation between experts from CTU and the Chapter continues this year. On 26 and 27 October 2021, another measurement and scanning of the bell took place. At the initiative of Dr. František Skopec, a great fan of bells, a symposium was organized at which our experts presented their methodology and its results in detail. "The guests of the symposium were representatives of bell technicians and a group of bell ringers from Kraków, who take care of a bell of the same name and almost the same size in Poland, and who showed interest in this methodology and its application to their bells. The initially local cooperation between the Chapter and the CTU is thus beginning to take on an international dimension," adds the Dean of the Metropolitan Chapter of St. Vitus in Prague, P. ICLic. Mgr. Ondřej Pávek.