## 2 Mechanical Characterisation and Selection of Base Materials
### Alkali-Resistant Glass Fabrics  
The seven AR-glass fabrics depicted in Figure 1 were selected from a broad set proposed by the manufacturer, following preliminary considerations aimed at ensuring the typical trilinear tensile behaviour of TRC and covering diverse structural interventions, where textile geometry and tensile capacity play a significant role. The main characteristics of the fabrics are given in Table 4, where it is possible to observe that grid spacings between 5 and 38 mm were explored and both styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and epoxy coatings were considered. As displayed in Figure 1, Fabrics F2 and F3 as well as F4 and F5 were identical, with the only exception being the coating nature; on close observation it was possible to detect that slight geometrical alterations were present, since SBR-coated fabrics tended to be more  
Figure 1: Overview of the investigated alkali-resistant glass fabrics (70 \(\times\) 70 mm\({}^{2}\) samples). \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Specimen**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Matrix M1**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Matrix M2**} \\  & \(f_{ctf}\)**(MPa)** & \(f_{ct}\)**(MPa)** & \(f_{cc}\)**(MPa)** & \(f_{ctf}\)**(MPa)** & \(f_{ct}\)**(MPa)** & \(f_{cc}\)**(MPa)** \\ \hline N1 & 16.49 & 7.30 & 100.42 & 8.26 & 3.66 & 69.08 \\ N2 & 14.81 & 6.55 & 98.36 & 7.15 & 3.16 & 65.20 \\ N3 & 14.01 & 6.20 & 93.86 & 8.46 & 3.74 & 59.94 \\ N4 & 14.61 & 6.47 & 90.66 & 7.28 & 3.22 & 56.77 \\ N5 & 12.74 & 5.63 & 88.97 & 5.11 & 2.26 & 49.52 \\ N6 & 12.90 & 5.71 & 89.01 & 5.85 & 2.59 & 53.12 \\ Average & 14.26 & 6.31 & 93.55 & 7.02 & 3.10 & 58.94 \\ (std) & (1.39) & - & (4.91) & (1.32) & - & (7.35) \\ (std\%) & (10\%) & - & (5\%) & (19\%) & - & (12\%) \\ \(m\) (Weibull) & 11.58 & - & - & 7.15 & - & - \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Bending, tensile and compressive strengths of matrices M1 and M2: discrete values, average values, standard deviations and shape coefficients \(m\) of the two-parameter Weibull distributions. squashed at the manufacturing stage. To the exclusion of Fabrics F6 and F7, the reinforcements were balanced in the warp and in the wert directions, as proved by the equivalent thicknesses \(t_{eq}\) collected in Table 4. This geometrical parameter was evaluated according to the following steps: (i) calculation of the equivalent wire section \(A_{w}\) as the ratio between the Tex (g/km) and the glass density (2680 kg/m\({}^{3}\)); (ii) calculation of the number of wires \(n_{w}\) over 1 m, according to the spacing; and (iii) calculation of \(t_{eq}\) as the ratio between the global area (equivalent wire section times the number of wires \(A_{w}\cdot n_{w}\)) and 1 m width. For each direction of the reinforcements, five uniaxial tensile tests were performed according to the strip method [20] of Figure 2, obtaining the average peak loads \(P_{max,avg}\) given in Table 5. The samples (70 \(\times\) 400 mm\({}^{2}\) in size) were clamped to an electromechanical press (a clamping force of about 8 kN was applied) with a maximum load capacity of 30 kN and a constant machine crosshead displacement (stroke) rate of 100 mm/min was taken as the feedback parameter. Epoxy resin tabs were preliminary created at the ends of each specimen (see Figure 2), to prevent stress localisation and slippage phenomena within the clamping zones. Referring to the standard deviations (std%) of Table 5, smaller pick distances (Fabrics F6 and F7) were generally associated to smaller dispersion of the mechanical results, in particular in the warp direction. The reason for this was the greater redundancy of the sample, which resulted less exposed to uneven stress distributions due to imprecise fabric geometry or clamping misalignments. The glass areas \(A_{f}\) given in Table 5 represent the cross-sections of the assembled rovings actually embedded within the 70 mm specimen widths, i.e.