Unreinforced
masonry (URM)
structures comprise a significant proportion of the building
stock in many countries
worldwide. However, URM walls do not behave well when
subjected to out-of-plane loading, such as that experienced under seismic
events. Consequently, many existing URM
structures require some form of retrofit
to comply with existing codes. As part of ongoing research at The University of
Adelaide on the behaviour of URM walls subject to out-of-plane loading, three
full-scale walls (with window openings) were tested under reversedcyclic
loading. The severely damaged walls were subsequently
retrofitted using
externally bonded fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) strips to quantify the
increase in strength and ductility relative to the original capacities. This
paper presents the results of the wall tests and observations leading to future
work. It was observed that the FRP strips may act as boundaries such that
failure of the wall is governed by the capacity of sub-panels bound by the
strips.