Adjudging efficacy of geonet reinforcement on the seismic performance of brick masonry structures: an experimental study

The severity of damage in masonry structures in earthquake-prone areas draws special attention of the research community to strengthen it so that the brittle nature of failure could be mitigated. In this context, masonry wallets and building models were strengthened by the polymer material, geonet, in the present study. The advantages of using this material are they are light weight, corrosion resistant, economical, and the elongation capacity is quite high. An effort has been made to investigate the suitability of the geonet for the strengthening purpose of the masonry structure. Conventional size and half-scale sizes of clay, and fly-ash bricks were used for the construction of the wallets. Further, scale down building models were prepared by the half-scale sizes of bricks. Wallets were tested under the in-plane and out-of-plane loading, whereas scaled-down building models were subjected to the bi-directional sinusoidal motion using a shaking table. The enhancement in shear strength, flexural strength, deformability of masonry structures due to the strengthening action are reported concisely. Further, the damage state of the building model was categorized qualitatively. It may be inferred from the experimental results that the use of geonet for strengthening purposes is quite effective in enhancing the seismic performance of masonry structures.