Modeling of Sustainable Composite Materials for Strengthening Applications of Masonry Structures

Fiber reinforced composite materials are widely used in current practice for strengthening interventions of masonry structures in seismic areas. In recent years, researchers have focused their interest on developing sustainable systems that combine natural fibers with inorganic matrices. The paper presented herein is devoted to model, at the local and global scale, the response of strengthening systems made of natural fibers composite materials embedded in cementitious matrix when applied to masonry walls. To this aim, a theoretical model able to simulate the local interaction between the reinforcement and the matrix is preliminarily carried out. In the second part of the paper, the contribution of this type of reinforcement in preventing out-of-plane mechanisms of masonry facades due to seismic actions has been assessed with reference to a case study.