Study on out-of-plane behaviour of unreinforced masonry strengthened with welded wire mesh and mortar

Unreinforced masonry (URM) is the oldest construction technique. URM being brittle cannot withstand the lateral loads during earthquake, hence it is necessary to find a suitable cost effective technique to strengthen masonry buildings in order to resist earthquake loads without causing any damage to life. In this paper, an attempt has been made to strengthen the URM samples of high strength mortar (1 cement : 4 sand) and low strength mortar (1 cement : 6 sand) which are commonly used in Indian construction practice, using mortar (1 cement : 3 coarse sand) and welded wire mesh (WWM) of various spacing (25 mm, 38 mm, 50 mm) which are locally available in market. A series of 6 URM panels and 18 reinforced masonry panels have been tested under three-point loading method as per ASTM E518-10 recommendations to study the out-of-plane behaviour of both URM and WWM mortar reinforced masonry. The mode of failure and behaviour of masonry have been investigated in terms of strength, stiffness and ductility. The results show that strengthening of masonry using WWM enhanced the flexural strength and ductility of masonry.