Experimental investigation of retrofitted shear walls reinforced with welded wire mesh fabric

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to present the cyclic behavior of strengthened reinforced concrete shear wall test specimen, which was reinforced with cold drawn welded wire mesh fabric. Two reinforced concrete shear wall specimens have been tested in the present study. The walls were tested under reversed cyclic loading with loading applied near the tip of the walls. The control wall is tested in its original state to serve as a baseline for the evaluation of the repair and strengthening techniques. The two test specimens include a control wall and a repaired wall. The control wall test specimen was designed and detailed to simulate non-ductile reinforced concrete shear walls that do not meet the modern seismic provisions. The response of the original wall was associated with the brittle failure. The control shear wall was repaired by addition of the reinforcements and the concrete and then it was reloaded. The effectiveness of the repair technique was investigated. Test results indicate that there can be a near full restoration of the walls' strength. The data from this test, augmenting other data available in the literature, will be useful in calibrating improved analytical methods as they are developed.