Missouri S&T Scholar's Mine Research RepositoryMissouri S&T Research
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Arching Effect in Masonry Walls Reinforced with Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Materials
It is generally accepted by the designer of masonry structures that some arching action takes place in walls subjected to transverse lateral loading and that this action is often sufficient to give generous strength and rigidity to panels that might otherwise be unstable. In order for this arching action to take place it is necessary for the masonry panels to be restrained at the supports. In this thesis the strengthening of masonry walls with FRP laminates encountering arching effect was studied. An experimental program was carried out in order to study the influence of the boundary conditions on the effectiveness of the strengthening technique. The parameters investigated were material properties (i.e. type of masonry support), amount of reinforcement and slenderness ratio. An analytical model was developed in order to predict the out-of-plane capacity of masonry walls reinforced with FRP and restrained against rigid supports. It can be stated that there is a very good agreement between the analytical model and the experimental results. The analytical model was also used to predict the ultimate load of URM walls strengthened with composites and tested to failure at a decommissioned building in St. Louis, Missouri. Again, the model showed to produce a very good accuracy with experimental results.