Out-of-plane behaviour of hollow concrete block masonry walls unstrengthened and strengthened with CFRP composite

This paper presents an experimental investigation conducted on full-scale masonry walls subjected to out-of-plane loading. This study contributes in detail both the global behaviour of hollow concrete block masonry walls unstrengthened and strengthened by composite, as well as the behaviour of constituent materials. On one hand, on a global level, this study has multiple objectives. It first quantifies the bearing capacity in the case of uniform pressure in quasi-static loading, and highlights the associated modes of rupture, and second estimates the improvements achieved in terms of overall behaviour when the structure is strengthened with Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) layers. The masonry walls strengthened with CFRP reinforced from 50% to 140% of bearing capacity wall. One of the important points of these tests was to reproduce the totally real boundary conditions by the presence of two return walls and of the reinforced concrete foundation. Sensitivity of these real boundary conditions towards the response of masonry walls was discussed. In particular, the digital image correlation (DIC) technique was applied to damage mechanism assessment of return wall. On the other hand, on a local level, the non-destructive testing (NDT) methods were also invested to identify the characteristics of the constituent materials.