A substantial proportion of the European building stock is made of unreinforced masonry constructions, which based on material availability and local tradition present natural stone or fired clay bricks as units. Masonry walls usually show an adequate compressive strength but a limited tensile resistance, thus being vulnerable to seismic loads. In the last decades several experimental programs were performed to define unreinforced masonry capacity under earthquake actions, most of them related to small size structural elements or small scale building models. Even shake-table tests are unavoidably performed on prototypes mimicking field conditions but not accounting for the actual complexity of an existing construction. In this paper are presented the results of in situ pushover tests on two portions of an existing brickwork building and the preliminary material tests on the masonry and its components. The two portions are very similar one to the other both in plan and elevation, as well a presenting the same structural details. The first construction was tested as built, while the second was tested after a strengthening intervention with GFRP composite reinforced mortar (Fibre Net Ri-Struttura system) was implemented. The intervention consisted in the application of the reinforced plaster on both sides of the walls of the first story and on the external side only of the upper story, a solution that preserves the continuity of use. The comparison between the two intervention implementations allows some preliminary indications about their degree of upgrading, while the comparison between the two constructions allows to appreciate the reduction in seismic vulnerability. A significant increase of the construction global capacity, in terms of peak strength, residual strength and displacement capacity, was observed. While in this paper the various phases of the tests are described in details, the general presentation of the program and the numerical results are subject of parallel contributions (AA.VV. 2022, AA.VV. 2022).

Keywords: masonry, pushover, damage, experimental test

References

Boccamazzo A. et al. 2022. Push ‘o ver: a pushover test program on an existing brickwork construction, Proc. XIX ANIDIS, 11-15 Sept 2022, Turin

Addessi et al. 2022. Push ‘o ver: numerical simulation of the Castel di Lama pushover test through damage model, Proc. XIX ANIDIS, 11-15 Sept 2022, Turin

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Mr. Franco Emidio Citeroni, Gaspari Gabriele Company, Fibre Net SpA, CMP Srl, Labortec Ingest Srl for their in-kind contribution to the project.