EXPERIMENTAL RESPONSE OF MASONRY WALLS EXTERNALLY REINFORCED WITH CARBON FIBER FABRICS

Recent earthquakes have produced extensive damage in a large number of existing unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings, showing the need for retrofit techniques for masonry structures. Six URM shear-walls externally reinforced with bonded carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets were tested under in-plane shear load. Walls with two configurations of the reinforcement were subjected to cyclic loading. Externally bonded CFRP reinforcement sharply increases the shear strength of URM walls and their deformation capacity, spreading the cracks in to several thinner cracks. The failure mode was less destructive than URM in walls. A model that produces good estimates of the strength of the reinforced walls was proposed. As future work 18 full scale masonry walls, with various configurations of exterior fabric reinforcement, including single side reinforcement, will be tested, and a design methodology will be proposed