Experimental study of the in-plane cyclic behaviour of masonry walls strengthened by composite materials

Abstract This study presents the results of an experimental campaign on masonry walls to characterize their behaviour under in-plane solicitations. A series of five walls has been built, including one reference wall and four walls reinforced with externally bonded composites that are either FRP-composites (fibre reinforced polymer) or TRC-composites (textile reinforced mortar). In the present work, strengthening materials were not applied over the entire masonry surface: walls were reinforced only with vertical composite sheets, spaced to reduce the amount of composite materials used for the reinforcement. Each wall was tested under a vertical compression load and cyclic reversed horizontal displacements until failure. This article presents the results in terms of load displacement curves, analyses the damage and failure modes of the different walls and provides a comparative study based on performance parameters, such as load capacity, ductility, stiffness degradation, energy dissipation capacity to highlight advantages and limitations of the different strengthening materials.