Experimental Study on the Strengthening of Masonry Column with RC Jacketing and Steel Strips

Abstract

Brick masonry structures are one of the most commonly used construction material used worldwide. They were mainly provided in buildings in most parts of the Indo-Pak Sub Continent including Bangladesh prior to concrete becoming a widely used building material. Quite a large number of these old brick masonry buildings have lost strength, which needs to be restored. This report presents the research work carried out to enhance the strength of brick masonry columns through confinement with reinforcement jacketing and steel strips so as to act as a retrofit arrangement in restoring strength of old brick masonry columns. Composite behavior of masonry columns coated with reinforcement jacketing was observed. Test results revealed that the application of reinforcement jacketing on bare masonry columns enhances the load carrying capacity quite significantly. Addition of Steel strip increased the failure load up to 14 percent as compared to control specimen. The failure mechanism of both the control specimen and the strengthened one was also observed. It was found that the bare specimen failed either by splitting or total crush. The failure was initiated from the toe of the specimen. In case of strengthened samples, the failure was mostly initiated by debonding of reinforcement jacketing from the surface of the column. Reinforcement jacketing applied 3.6 Mpa (500KN) then UTM machine stopped.