STRENGTHENING OF INFILL MASONRY WALLS USING BONDO GRIDS WITH POLYUREA

ABSTRACT

Glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) grids reinforced polyurea was used to strengthen unreinforced concrete masonry and clay brick (URM) walls. The URM walls were loaded to ultimate condition under an in-plane diagonal compressive force (see Figure 1). Different variables including amounts and directions of the polyurea were investigated. It was observed that the failure modes of the URM walls changed due to the strengthening schemes. Test results indicate that application of GFRP grid reinforced polyurea is an effective retrofit scheme for the walls, because the in-plane capacity of the strengthened walls increased significantly. A failure theory was modified to predict the shear capacity of the tested URM walls and the numerical results matched with the experimental results within a reasonable degree of accuracy.