Experimental investigation on masonry walls strengthened by CFRP subjected to cyclic shear-compression tests

This work reports the results of an experimental programme aimed at investigating the in-plane behaviour of claybrick masonry walls externally strengthened by Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) strips. Particularly, four different geometrical layouts were considered for the CFRP strips, though keeping unchanged the quantity of composites employed in each wall. Firstly, a preliminary experimental work was carried out on samples of the constitutive materials for quantifying their key mechanical properties and evaluating the bond behaviour of FRP strips on the masonry substrates. Then, eleven cyclic shear-compression tests were performed to observe the response of strengthened walls and the influence of the strengthening layouts under investigation. The proposed experimental report is intended as a contribution to the current state of knowledge about the behaviour of FRPstrengthened masonry walls: it is available to assess the accuracy and possibly improve the predictive capacity of design-oriented capacity models.