During recent seismic events (2016 in central Italy, 2014 in China’s Ludian County, etc.), masonry structures have shown their vulnerability to in plane actions. A lot of retrofitting solutions are today available to increase the in-plane resistance of existing masonry walls. The seismic strengthening technique presented in this chapter is a retrofitting system for masonry buildings developed over 10 years at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany, Institute of Reinforced Concrete and Building Materials (Germany). It consists of a multiaxial hybrid fibre grid embedded in an inorganic natural hydraulic lime (NHL) mortar. Due to its composition, it is perfect compatible with the masonry substrate and applicable for indoor as well as outdoor applications. Moreover, it improves the local and the overall structural capacity of a masonry building with minimum mass increase. The intensive experimental campaign carried out on this strengthening system at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and its results are presented and discussed in this chapter.
Part of the book: Earthquakes