The Out-of-Plane Bending Behavior of Brick Infill Walls Strengthened with Perforated Steel Plates

Abstract

The brick infill walls cease to contribute to the lateral strength and stiffness of a structure as soon as they fail in a brittle manner in the early stages of an earthquake. Recent studies indicated that the perforated steel plates externally bonded to both faces of a wall lead to two benefits. First, the increase in the lateral strengths and rigidities of the walls increase the overall lateral strength and stiffness of the structure. Secondly, the increase in the ductilities of the walls allows the walls to absorb higher amounts of the earthquake-induced energy before failure so that smaller amounts of energy are required to be absorbed by the bearing structural members. The present study is dedicated to investigate the efficiency of this technique on the behavior of brick walls under out-of-plane bending moments, induced by the blast effect of an explosion or pressure from the soil, wind or snow next to the wall. A brick wall strengthened with perforated steel plates and a brick wall strengthened with perforated steel plates and steel strips on both faces were subjected to four-point bending. The steel plates greatly contributed to the bending capacities of the walls. The use of steel strips on the plates did not affect the flexural capacity of the wall, while increasing the ductility of the wall considerably.