Experimental in-plane behavior and retrofitting method of mud-brick walls

Despite the rapid growth of engineering science especially in the modern structural engineering and application of new materials in civil engineering, a significant percentage of world population in different countries are living in adobe buildings made from mud-bricks. In this paper, by performing experimental study on scaled mud-brick walls under monotonic load, in-plane behavior of the walls have been investigated for different levels of vertical load. After recognizing damage mechanisms from experiment, a simple retrofitting method has been presented to upgrade wall performance. Experimental behavior of retrofitted walls was also studied. The proposed retrofitting method consists of using polypropylene lace and tarpaulin belts. As a result, a better performance of the walls in terms of shear capacity, ductility and energy absorption are observed by using proposed retrofitting method. Meanwhile, Proposed retrofitting method has significant effect in rocking mechanism delay and prevention of wall sudden collapse.