Strengthening of masonry vaults through a thin extradoxal layer of fiber reinforced lime mortar

A technique to strengthen existing masonry vaults consisting in the application at the extrados of a GFRP mesh reinforced mortar coating is herein presented.The effectiveness of the technique is investigated through non-linearstaticanalysisutilizinga2Dsmearcrackmodel.Solidbrickbarrelvaultswiththreedifferent aspect ratio between the arch rise and the curvature radius are considered (1, 0.75 and 0.6). Two different load patterns are analyzed: vertical and horizontal load, with distributions proportional to the self-weight. The mechanical characteristics of the masonry, the GFRP mesh and the reinforced mortar coating are assessed through experimental tests. The simulations permitted to evaluate the collapse mechanisms of the vaults, governed by the flexural behavior.The great effectiveness of the reinforcement technique was evidenced by comparing both the resistance and the displacement capacity of reinforced and unreinforced vaults.