Strengthening of brick infilled walls with expanded steel plates

Building-type structures have been heavily damaged thus causing loss of lives at medium and large-scale past earthquakes in our country, which necessitated strengthening of buildings with high risk of severe damage and defective constructions before new earthquakes that may occur. These problems directed researchers to develop effective, economical and practical methods of strengthening. Non-bearing infill walls of structures were reinforced using different materials (fibrous polymer strips and fabrics, steel profiles, epoxy resin, etc.) in previous studies. However, these strengthening methods have not become popular since their application is costly and diffucult-to-apply and they necessitate the evacuation of structures. This study was performed to investigate strengthening of infill walls with externally-connected expanded steel plates which is an effective, economical and practical method. Within the scope of the study, a total of 30 test specimens, two of which are reference, were tested under monotonic diagonal loading. In strengthening process, expanded steel plates were attached on both sides of the existing brick infilled walls and these plates were connected to each other with bolts. Expanded steel plate thickness, bolt spacing and application surface were selected as test variables. As a result of the study performed, a majority of tensile stresses of walls reinforced with expanded steel plates was found to be resisted by the plates method, a confinement pressure that can be considered as three axial occured on the wall and the wall acted as a composite material until the bolts yield. Sudden loss of load did not take place at the bearing capacities of the reinforced test elements during the experiment and all strengthened test specimens protected their integrity until the end of the experiment. Thus, load bearing capacities, stiffness, ductility and energy absorption capacities of reinforced-brick infilled walls were highly increased. Moreover, an analytical in order to estimate diagonal load capacities of brick infilled walls reinforced with expanded steel plates. Analytical load estimations were found to be consistent with experimental values.