Mechanical characterization of mortars used in the restoration of historical buildings: an operative atlas for maintenance and conservation

The complexity of the architectural and structural restoration of historical buildings requires a careful choice in the use of repair mortars compatible with the original materials of the existing building. It is important to set up an atlas of reference, compared to many mixtures of mortars and conglomerates, useful to support the operational choices in the project of restoration, recovery, and maintenance of historical buildings. The aim is also to encourage the use of local materials with a “short supply chain”, compatible with buildings and applied by traditional techniques. The research makes use of experimental bending, compression and elastic modulus tests on different mixtures of mortars. This paper describes some of the first results obtained so far, because the research is still underway for many different mixtures to test and catalogue. The comparison between the data and the reference values that will be identified, will lead to set up a reference atlas of mechanical behaviour of repair mortars in order to direct the design and operational choices in function of requirements and performance (of the wall systems) of each specific cases in the field of the restoration of historical buildings.