Abstract:
A research programme has been initiated in New Zealand to address concerns regarding the seismic performance of New Zealand’s unreinforced masonry (URM) building stock. As a component of this programme, monotonic in-plane shear (diagonal compression) tests were conducted on URM wallettes to simulate the commonly observed diagonal shear failure of in-plane walls in an earthquake. In total, four wallettes were tested, three of which were retrofitted with various configurations of GFRP strips. The unretrofitted wallette failed in a brittle manner. The retrofitted wallettes exhibited a more ductile behaviour. Significant increases in wallette strength and pseudo-ductility were achieved by the application of GFRP.
