Masonry walls retrofitted with natural fibers under tsunami loads

Abstract

In the last decades, several tsunamis hit international coasts and engaged scientific awareness to the retrofit of coastal buildings against tsunami loads. Structural design under tsunami loads is difficult due to the high uncertainties of the phenomenon. Local collapse mechanisms of masonry walls, like as out of plane mechanisms, have an high probability due to flexural actions; a higher flexural capacity can be reached using specific retrofit systems; in particular, this paper aims to deepen the behavior of masonry walls retrofitted with innovative retrofit systems like as natural fibers applied with inorganic mortar matrices. The retrofit of structures under tsunami actions could be an innovative research topic for international research community dealing with coastal buildings located in areas characterized by a high tsunami risk. Recent engineering applications demonstrated the innovative strengthening systems to be effective for the retrofit of existing masonry buildings. These strengthening systems are of great interest in the practical applications due to the low costs and their sustainability. In fact, the lower costs compared to the synthetic fibers allow their diffusion in emerging countries. In a first part the impact of constituents on the structural capacity of masonry elements strengthened with natural systems has been discussed. Important results have been provided in order to improve the knowledge and encourage the development of these systems in many engineering applications. Finally, the effects of retrofit systems on masonry walls under tsunami loads will be discussed in terms of critical inundation depth variations before and after the interventions.