Strengthening of brick masonry with PVA fiber reinforced cement stucco

• Shear and compressive tests of brick masonry walls samples were performed.
• Three different types of brick were used.
• The effectiveness of PVA fiber reinforced cementitious stucco of masonry walls was investigated.

This paper presents the behavior of masonry walls externally strengthened by poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) fiber reinforced cement plaster. Tensile weakness of masonry wall is improved by simply applying fiber reinforced cement (FRC) plaster on masonry surface. Strengthening by ductile materials, in order to maintain ductile behavior of masonry to resist shear forces would provide reduction in the crack development and crack width providing delay in failure. FRC was applied to surfaces of the masonry wall as stucco to prevent crack growth under shear effect. An experimental program was performed to study the response of unreinforced and retrofitted masonry walls with externally applied fiber reinforced cement mixture, under shear and compressive loading. The experimental results indicate that retrofitting masonry walls with PVA fiber reinforced cement stucco increases the shear strength of the wall approximately half times in solid and high strength brick walls, 2.5 times in regular brick walls.