Ultimate in-plane shear behaviour of clay brick masonry elements strengthened with TRM overlays

This paper studies the response of unreinforced masonry (URM) members made of hydraulic lime mortar and fired clay bricks, commonly found in heritage structures, strengthened with textile reinforced mortar (TRM) overlays. The investigation includes URM and TRM-strengthened diagonal compression tests on square panels, and relatively large-scale wall specimens subjected to combined gravity and lateral cyclic loads. Complementary compression, tension, and interface material tests are also carried out. The diagonal panel tests show that the TRM effectiveness depends in a non-proportional manner on the overlays, render thickness, and substrate strength. The enhancement in stiffness, strength, and ultimate shear strain, using one to four mesh layers on each side, is shown to vary in the range of 49–132%, 102–536%, and 300–556% respectively. It is shown that strut crushing typically governs the response of such low-strength URM masonry elements confined by TRM overlays. The cyclic tests on the comparatively larger walls show that the TRM is effective, shifting the response from URM diagonal tension to rocking, and enhancing the stiffness, strength, and ultimate drift capacity by more than 160%, 30%, and 130%, respectively. It is shown that analytical assessment methods for predicting the response of TRM-strengthened and URM members in terms of stiffness, strength and load-deformation can be reliably adapted. The cumulative contribution of the URM and TRM components, in conjunction with a suitable fibre textile strain, is also found to offer an improved prediction of the shear strength compared to codified procedures. The findings enable the evaluation and improvement of analytical models for determining the main inelastic response parameters of TRM-strengthened masonry and provide information for validating future detailed nonlinear numerical simulations.