Non-Structural masonry walls strengthened with GFRP laminates

One of the major construction systems in Colombia, and in general throughout Latin America, consists of multistory moment resisting reinforced concrete (RC) frames filled with unreinforced masonry (URM) walls. These non-structural masonry walls are conventionally built using clay tiles. Due to the high seismic activity in Colombia, this kind of masonry wall is prone to damage. One of the alternatives being explored in Colombia to prevent the failure or lessen the damages in clay tile URM walls is to strengthen them with Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) laminates. This paper presents promising results of experimental tests conducted on twenty-six wallettes of 9x70x70 cm and 9x120x120 cm, which were strengthened with different layouts of GFRP laminates. In addition, a full-scale wall was tested to validate the technology. The paper discusses the effect of GFRP laminates on the failure mechanisms, capacity and ductility parameters as well as on the overall reduction of earthquake damage for clay tile URM walls.