Simulating the Nonlinear Mechanical Behavior of FRCM-strengthened Irregular Stone Masonry Walls

Earthquakes constitute a significant cause of degradation and damage for masonry heritages, such as churches, palaces, castles, and entirely historical centers. This work aims to investigate numerically the Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Matrix (FRCM) system applied as coating- reinforcement to existing stone masonry walls. Indeed, despite the FRCM is, nowadays, one of the most widely adopted systems for the consolidation of masonry structures, the knowledge on its mechanical behavior is still incomplete. In this work, diagonal compression tests performed on reinforced stone masonry panels are simulated and interpreted by adopting a sophisticated numerical framework, based on the Lattice Discrete Particle Model (LDPM), which simulates, at the length scales of the masonry stones and coating mortar grains, the fracture and failure behavior of the quasi-brittle heterogeneous materials by modeling the interaction among irregular particles. Different assumptions on the FRCM features (bond behavior and thickness of the coating mortar, and the presence or not of the fiber grid therein the coating mortar) were investigated to better understand their effect. The computational effort of using that method was rewarded from the possibility of capturing the main aspects of the material heterogeneity on the fracture propagation and damage evolution in the reinforced masonry walls.