Experimental investigation on out-of-plane behavior of GFRP retrofitted masonry panels

An experimental investigation is carried out on the out-of-plane behavior of small scaled masonry walls strengthened by glass fiber reinforced polymers. The test specimens represent traditional load-bearing masonry walls in Iran. Six specimens have been tested under out-of-plane loading: one unreinforced masonry wall, four GFRP retrofitted walls and one masonry wall that is strengthened by a layer of cement mortar on both sides. The effect of the strengthening on the load carrying capacity, displacement ductility, energy absorption and failure modes is discussed in details. The experimental results show that the mechanical behavior and flexural resistance of retrofitted masonry walls have improved significantly.