Investigating the Behaviour of Plaster Mortared Rural Masonry Walls

Abstract

Turkey is located on the Alpine-Himalayan earthquake zone. %92 of its land is faced with earthquake hazard. Even in low intensity earthquakes, major damages have been observed in masonry structures. Masonry structures which are built without any technical support constitute the %40-45 of the structures in Turkey. Therefore, these structures cause losses of lives and remarkable economic in earthquakes. Studies on earthquake resistant structural designs focus on reinforced concrete and steel structures. Researches on masonry structures which are especially preferred in rural areas in Turkey. However, earthquakes negatively affect the masonry structures more than reinforced concrete and steel ones. In the scope of this study, behavior of plaster mixed walls which increase the strength of masonry structures is studied. For this purpose, strength values of normal plaster mixed regular walls with blend bricks and polypropylene and steel fiber mixed masonry walls are analyzed. Double-row and 45x45 mm sized normal mortared wall which is specially produced by 1:2 scaled blend bricks having 100x50x30 mm size values and walls that are formed by polypropylene and steel fiber additives are exposed to biaxial load in several angles. Stress-envelope equations are obtained due to strength of masonry walls bonded by plaster mixed blend bricks. Obtained curves make an important contribution to determine the realistic behavior of polypropylene and steel fiber plastered masonry walls.