In-plane shear behaviour of unreinforced and jacketed brick masonry walls

• We performed in-plane cyclic shear tests on unreinforced and jacketed masonry walls.
• Shear resistance of the jacketed walls was increased 2–3 times.
• The deformation capacity of jacketed walls was not improved significantly.
• It is proposed to calculate jacketed walls analytically as reinforced masonry walls.

This paper deals with the results of cyclic load tests on masonry walls performed for the purpose of evaluation of in-plane shear behaviour and identification of shear strength, stiffness and energy dissipation. Eight walls in two series were assembled in laboratory conditions. The first series consisted of four unreinforced masonry walls constructed from solid clay bricks and lime mortar. The walls from the second series were strengthened by application of RC jackets on both sides. These were constructed of the same material and were characterized by the same geometry properties and vertical load levels as those of the walls from the first series. The main goal of the tests was to compare the behaviour of the unreinforced and strengthened walls under cyclic horizontal load. The results from the tests showed that the application of the strengthening method contributed to a significant improvement of the shear resistance of the jacketed walls. Analytical models were used to predict the shear resistance of the walls. Good agreement with the experimental results was obtained with a model based on tensile strength of masonry.