Reinforced masonry brick walls with extended steel plate and glass fiber added spray concrete application

Reinforced concrete structures and masonry structures constitute the types of structures representing the highest construction stock in the world, especially in regions affected by destructive earthquakes. However, although masonry structures have sufficient vertical load bearing capacity, they do not show much resistance against horizontal earthquake forces; it has become a well-known fact, both with observations made after severe earthquakes and with experiments carried out in labs. Based on this realistic situation, various researches are conducted to increase the resistance and bearing capacity of masonry structures against earthquake loads. Strengthening of masonry brick walls has been dealt with in this study, since the strengthening of the walls, which play the role of bearing elements especially in masonry structures, is the most important factor that affects the structure behavior. Masonry brick walls, in the literature have been strengthened using many different materials such as, steel profiles and sheets, epoxy resin, fibrous polymer strip and fabric… etc. In this study, the "shotcrete" technique, which, in the literature, is used to strengthen infill brick walls, but has not been tested on masonry brick walls, was used and the effect of the use of expanded steel plate in different thicknesses on masonry brick wall strength and behavior was investigated. In the current study, under the main title of strengthening masonry (block) brick walls; A total of 6 experimental elements were discussed, 1 reference and 5 reinforced samples using 30 mm glass fiber reinforced shotcrete on expanded steel plates. The thickness of the steel sheets used as reinforcement material was determined as the variable parameter of the experiment and all prepared samples were tested under diagonal loading. As a result of the study, reinforced samples reached glass fiber reinforced blasted concrete, steel plates and anchorage bolts, which can carry great tensile stresses, have a great load carrying and energy damping capacity, there is no sudden load loss in the test samples, the samples maintain their integrity until the end of the experiment, their ductility and rigidity are great. It was observed that increases occurred.