Experimental Studies on Strengthening of Masonry Walls with GFRP Subjected to Lateral Loads

Masonry building remains as one of the best known and the widest spread constructions. Recent earthquakes have shown the vulnerability of such Unreinforced Masonry (URM) walls, which leads to an urgent need in developing effective and affordable retrofitting techniques to upgrade the strength of the existing masonry walls to resist lateral forces. The paper presents the experimental studies conducted to investigate the effects and efficiency of utilizing surface mounted Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) strips to strengthen the Unreinforced Masonry (URM) walls with openings against lateral loads. URM walls were tested against lateral loads for different percentages of openings retrofitted and strengthened by GFRP strips horizontally, vertically and diagonally around the opening. The ultimate lateral load carrying capacity of the URM walls and their crack patterns were studied. The GFRP strengthening system can increase the ductility, load carrying capacity of URM walls and thereby improving the performance of walls mainly for lateral loads.