EXPERIMENTALLY VALIDATED RETROFIT SOLUTIONS Shake-table testing of securing solutions for face-loaded unreinforced masonry walls

Abstract

One of the most critical deficiencies of historic clay brick unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings [1] is the out-of-plane failure mechanism induced by lateral earthquake loads [2-4]. This failure mechanism is inhibited via the addition of adequate walldiaphragm and wall-to-wall connections. However, in high and moderate seismic zones the sudden and unstable out-of-plane failure of walls mainly located at the upper building levels can result in extensive damage and potentially catastrophic collapse, posing a significant life-safety hazard to both building occupants and nearby pedestrians. A number of studies have been previously undertaken to investigate the performance of as-built URM walls when subjected to out-ofplane loads [5-7] and comparatively small number of studies were undertaken on the dynamic behaviour of retrofitted URM walls and validation of retrofit techniques. The study presented herein focuses on developing and experimentally validating simple, practical, costeffective, aesthetics, minimally-invasive and reversible seismic securing techniques for URM walls when loaded out-of-plane, with a main focus on practical applications in existing vintage buildings.