Investigating the Retrofitting Effect of Fiber-Reinforced Plastic and Steel Mesh Casting on Unreinforced Masonry Walls

Unreinforced masonry (URM) is one of the most popular construction materials around the world, but vulnerable during earthquakes. Due to its brittle nature, the URM structures may lead to a possible collapse of the wall of a building during earthquake events causing casualties. In the current research, an attempt is made to enhance the seismic capacity of URM structures by proposing a new innovative composite material that can improve the shear strength and deformation capacity of the URM wall systems. The results revealed that the fiber-reinforced plastic having high tensile and shear stiffness can significantly increase in-plane as well as out-of-plane bending strength of the URM wall. It was recorded that the bending moment of the prism increased up to 549.5% by increasing the bending moment from 490 N*mm to 3183 N*mm per mm deflection of prism upon using glass fibers. Moreover, the ductility ratio amplified up to 5.73 times while the stiffness ratio increased up to 4.16 times with the aid of glass fibers. Since the material used in this research work is low cost, easily available, and no need for any skilled labor, which is economically good. Therefore, the URM walls retrofitted with fiber-reinforced plastic is an economical solution.

Automated summary

Unreinforced masonry (URM) is vulnerable during earthquakes, but using a new composite material can enhance its seismic capacity, improving shear strength and deformation capacity. The results show that using fiber-reinforced plastic significantly increases the bending strength and ductility of URM structures. The low cost and easy availability of the material make retrofitting URM walls with fiber-reinforced plastic an economical solution.