A natural evolution of ferrocement has been the replacement of the reinforcing steel with new composite materials. Not only has this addressed the issue of possible durability problems associated with steel corrosion, but has opened the possibility of using thin-section cementitious products as repair materials. Fabric-reinforced cementitious matrix (FRCM) is a class of composite systems that has recently emerged as an alternative to traditional retrofitting methods like fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP), steel plate bonding, section enlargement, and external post-tensioning for repairing and strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) and masonry structures. FRCM consists of a reinforcing phase (fabrics) embedded into a matrix (cementitious mortar) adhered to concrete or masonry structural members and acts as supplemental, externally-bonded reinforcement. The goal of this dissertation is to experimentally and analytically investigate the effectiveness of FRCM to retrofit existing masonry structures; to evaluate the flexural and shear capacity of FRCM walls; to develop structural design procedures; and, to compare FRCM and FRP externally strengthened masonry walls. The dissertation is articulated in three studies. The first study (Study 1) investigates masonry walls externally strengthened with FRCM subjected to diagonal compression; the second (Study 2) focuses on FRCM strengthened walls subjected to out-of-plane loading; and the third (Study 3) presents a comparison between experimental results in this research program and other research programs using FRP systems when the normalized shear or flexural capacity is related to a calibrated reinforcement ratio
