Behaviour of small masonry assemblages reinforced with a steel cord reinforced joint repointing

Unreinforced masonry (URM) walls are one of the oldest and most common types of construction elements in the world. However they are susceptible to failure when exposed to overstresses, caused by out-of-plane and in-plane loads. In this paper a new method for reinforcing brickwork masonry using steel cords embedded into the mortar joints is proposed. The average cord diameter of 3 mm, enables reinforcement to be retrofitted to brick and irregular stone-masonry walls. Joints can then be repointed to hide the cords, so that no evidence of strengthening work is visible on the final finished façade. The bending behaviour of 20 brick-masonry small assemblages has been evaluated. Specimens have been prepared using two courses of bricks with nominal dimensions of 215 x 102 x 65 mm and two different types of lime-based mortar. After the mechanical characterization of the materials used for construction and reinforcement, an experimental was carried out to assess the potential of the technique comparing the results of bending test achieved for unreinforced specimens. Test results show an increase of bending capacity and of flexural stiffness up to 49.8 and 475%, respectively.