Fibre-reinforced lime-based mortars: A possible resource for ancient masonry restoration

In order to design binding materials able to historical buildings restoration, physical–mechanical properties and microstructure of fibre-reinforced lime-based hydraulic mortars, have been studied, in comparison with a reference hydraulic lime-based mortar with no addition. Fibre-reinforced mortars, even characterised by larger porosity and lower mechanical strength than the reference, pointed up a clear improvement in the post-cracking behaviour and, regardless of nature and concentration of fibres, turned from brittle materials to ductile materials. It was demonstrated that the addition of as low as 2% of glass fibres leads to a toughening of the mortar and jointly to an improvement of the flexural load.