Steel mesh reinforced coating characterization for masonry upgrading

Masonry buildings demonstrated to be vulnerable to earthquake events over the years, particularly due to their intrinsic brittle or poorly ductile behavior. Given the importance of masonry structures in the existing building stock, upgrading interventions aimed to increase the seismic performances of this kind of structures are of utmost importance. This paper will focus on the steel mesh reinforced coating technique. Despite its wide use, no detailed design approaches are available in codes or scientific literature to help designers defining the improved performance of the strengthened walls. To overcome this lack of knowledge, an experimental campaign on brickwork samples of both unreinforced and retrofitted walls was conducted. Cyclic diagonal compression tests under displacement control were performed considering different thicknesses of masonry and plaster. The obtained results highlighted the increase of failure load and ductility of the upgraded specimens with respect to the unreinforced ones.