Nima Farnia¹ and Khaled Galal²

1. D. Candidate, Dept. of Building, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, H3G 1M8, Canada, nima.farnia@gmail.com
2. Associate Professor, Dept. of Building, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, H3G 1M8 Canada, galal@bcee.concordia.ca

ABSTRACT

Compared to reinforced concrete, relatively few experimental studies have been conducted to document the behaviour of masonry columns under combined axial load and flexure. Furthermore, by introducing new techniques such as using carbon fibre-reinforced polymers (CFRP) wraps, it is possible to enhance the behaviour of reinforced masonry columns considerably. Therefore, this paper focuses on improving the seismic performance of reinforced masonry columns using CFRP wraps. In current experimental study, three 1.4m reinforced masonry columns were constructed and tested when subjected to constant axial force and cyclic lateral excitations. The columns have a cross-section of 390mmx390mm and were constructed using bull-nosed concrete units. The first column, which had no CFRP wraps, was used as a control specimen while second and third columns were wrapped with 2 and 4 layers of CFRP sheets respectively. The columns were subjected to a constant axial force of 200 kN. From the tests, it was observed that CFRP wraps improves confinement of masonry column, which leads to more ductile behaviour and improvement in lateral load capacity.

KEYWORDS: reinforced masonry columns, CFRP wraps, seismic, and ductile behaviour.

A5-4