Fabric-Reinforced Cementitious Matrix (FRCM): A new Italian guideline under development

In addition to Fibre-Reinfoced composite materials, which are made of long glass/carbon/aramid fibers embedded in a polymer matrix (FRP), the use of FRCM composites (Fabric-Reinforced Cementitious Matrix) is becoming more and more widespread. As far as this specific case, the inorganic matrix guarantees many advantages, especially when dealing with masonry substrates, including a good compatibility from both a physical and a chemical point of view and the possibility of wet lay-up application. Despite their wide use in technical applications, the constitutive behavior and the failure mechanisms of FRCMs have not been adequately studied. As a consequence, a final assessment upon which criteria have to be used for verification and qualification of FRCMs is still missing. In the context of a recent experimental program-still under development-cooperated by many Italian academic laboratories, that is aimed at detecting the main features of the constitutive behavior of these materials, a discussion seems to be appropriate on the initial experimental results obtained at Salerno University on many FRCM specimens tested under uniaxial tensile loads.