Out-of-Plane Strengthening of Masonry Infills Using Textile Reinforced Mortar (TRM) Technique

The out-of-plane collapse of masonry infills during seismic actions resulted in human life losses and huge repair or reconstruction costs. These problems will result in disturbance of the operational functions of the buildings. The main scope of this research is to analyze the efficiency of different strengthening techniques based on textile reinforced mortar (TRM) technique and using steel connectors in the out-of-plane direction. To accomplish the objectives, four half-scale specimens were tested under uniform out-of-plane loads applied by an airbag to each mass of the infill cyclically. The performance of the textile reinforced mortar technique by using two different meshes was also evaluated experimentally. Besides the protection of the infill from collapsing and protection of human lives, using TRM technique enhances the out-of-plane response of the specimen but its connection to the infill has to be deeply investigated.