Masonry Elements Strengthened with TRM: A Review of Experimental, Design and Numerical Methods

Textile-Reinforced Mortar (TRM) is a modern and compatible strengthening strategy for existing masonry, which consists in plastering the walls by means of mortar layers with embedded grids or textiles made of long fibers. TRM can be very useful for the reduction of the seismic vulnerability of masonry buildings, since the fiber-based reinforcement, carrying high tensile stresses, opposes the widening of cracks and provides “pseudo-ductility” to the masonry. The increasing number of available studies on the subject testifies to its relevance but also the lack of a standardized or well-establish approach to quantify the benefits of these systems on the performance of masonry. The present review is aimed at providing a broad overview of how the study of TRM-strengthened masonry elements has been addressed in the literature. In particular, the main features of the different experimental tests are compared, dealing with both in-plane and out-of-plane behavior. Moreover, the different design methods and numerical modeling strategies are presented and discussed.