Severely damaged URM walls retrofitted with FRP strips subjected to out-of-plane loading

Abstract

Unreinforced masonry (URM) structures comprise a significant proportion of the building stock in many countries worldwide. However, URM walls do not behave well when subjected to out-of-plane loading, such as that experienced under seismic events. Consequently, many existing URM structures require some form of retrofit to comply with existing codes. As part of ongoing research at The University of Adelaide on the behaviour of URM walls subject to out-of-plane loading, three full-scale walls (with window openings) were tested under reversed-cyclic loading. The severely damaged walls were subsequently retrofitted using externally bonded fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) strips to quantify the increase in strength and ductility relative to the original capacities. This paper presents the results of the wall tests and observations leading to future work. It was observed that the FRP strips may act as boundaries such that failure of the wall is governed by the capacity of sub-panels bound by the strips.