The Green Tape project. ‘In falso’ walls strengthening through natural FRCM innovative techniques

The lore of a peculiar architectural–structural feature, common in heritage, is discussed: the ‘in falso’ wall, a load-bearing masonry built without a direct load path to foundations, resting directly on the underlying vaults. An intervention in FRCM is designed to be a solution more sustainable than traditional ones, avoiding damage to masonry vaults and other historical elements and using an optimised amount of composites. An experimental campaign assesses the structural behaviour of ‘in falso’ walls in the scenario of a cascading collapse due to the underlying slabs’ damage under seismic actions. Numerical models are also introduced, as a tool useful to clarify the behaviour of such walls and to optimise the design of the above-mentioned composites, usually applied over the entire masonry surface.