CHARACTERIZATION OF THE LUMPS IN THE MORTARS OF HISTORIC MASONRY

The present work focuses on the investigation of mortar joints of hist oric masonries consisting traditionally of aerial binder and inerts wh ich contain lumps. The presence of lumps, usually white in colour and of various dimensions, was often recorded inside these mixtures and do es not appear to be random, as they are rather frequent. These lumps c ould confer some physicochemical properties to the mixture, that favou r the overall compatibility of the system. For this purpose, various s amples taken from historic Venetian masonry were examined by TG-DTG an d FTIR analysis. Moreover SEM and fibre optical microscope observation s were performed. The results indicate mainly the presence of complete ly carbonated lime and lead us to assume that the lumps arise from tec hnologies based on the non-seasoning of the lime.