Antonio La Tegola1, and Walter Mera1
1 Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil
Av. C. J. Arosemena, km 1,5 – Guayaquil, Ecuador
e-mail: {antonio.lategola,walter.mera}@cu.ucsg.edu.ec
Keywords: masonry walls, FRP reinforcement, collapse modes, structural behavior.
Abstract. The seismic events that have occurred in Ecuador in the last years have highlighted that the masonry walls located either at the façade or at the interior of the floors in reinforced concrete buildings, have suffered remarkable damage due to the brittle behavior of the plaster, which is frequently made with cementitious mortar of good quality. Following the displacement of adjacent floors (drift), the masonry walls were not able to withstand the deformation, causing cracking and sometimes explosion of the plaster, with collapse of parts of the same wall. Therefore, a series of experimental tests were designed on specimens of masonry panels subjected to diagonal compression testing, the plaster of the specimens were reinforced using micro mesh in FRP of various materials, such as glass and basalt fibers. The main characteristic of the collapse mechanism of these panels is a brittle failure. The tests were carried out by gradually incrementing the load of the jack up to the collapse of the panels or the presence of cracks, so that a more realistic value of the ultimate strength to shear was identified (Pu), and to calculate the angular deformation (γ) as a function of the progress of the stress.