Improving the In-Plane Behavior of Brick Masonry Wallet Using PP Band and Steel Wire Mesh

Past seismic events have led to severe damage and even collapse of unreinforced masonry (URM) structure in a brittle manner. The present study is focused on improving the in-plane strength and ductility of masonry wallets (made using both clay bricks and fly-ash bricks) by strengthening with the following two cost-effective materials: polypropylene (PP) band and steel wire mesh. Further, half-scale bricks of both types were also used to check the suitability of these bricks for the scale-down model. Diagonal compression tests were carried out for 36 wallets (four URM and 32 reinforced) as per ASTM standard recommendations. Two linear variable displacement transducers (LVDT) were placed on the specimen to measure the compression and tension during testing. The shear strength of each wallet was evaluated using a set of equations. Further, shear modulus and pseudoductility were computed by analyzing the experimental results of unreinforced and strengthened wallets. Close agreement of the analytical and experimental results validate the use of the analytical model for predicting the shear capacity of the in-plane loaded wallet. The improvement in ductility presented in this study is meant to compare the enhanced deformation ability of the strengthened wallets to its URM counterparts. The conclusion reached is that both strengthening materials are effective in enhancing the load-carrying capacity, shear strength, and deformation ability of the unreinforced masonry wallet.