Enhancing the Structural Resilience of Fly-Ash Masonry Wallets with Polyproplene(PP) Band Retrofitting and its Advanced FEM Modelling using Continuum Micro Modelling Coupled (CMM) With Concrete Damage Plasticity Modelling (CDPM)

Abstract

This research examines the use of Fly Ash masonry brick, a sustainable building material, and its retrofitting by the application of Fiber-based retrofitting technology. The main objective is to improve the performance of unreinforced masonry brick walls (URM) after reaching their maximum load capacity, since they are prone to structural collapse when subjected to horizontal forces. The retrofitting of existing masonry buildings has chosen polypropylene PPband as the most feasible alternative because to its cost-effectiveness, material accessibility, and simplicity of installation. Laboratory studies and computer simulations were performed to evaluate the seismic effectiveness of PP-band retrofit, in order to demonstrate its efficiency. The walls were subjected to lateral pressures by applying pre-compression pressure to evaluate the performance of PP-band retrofit brickwork under horizontal loads. The results indicate that retrofitting with PP-band may improve the post peak performance by about 2.5 times compared to specimens without retrofitting. Additionally, sophisticated modeling approaches are used, including the incorporation of Continuum Masonry Modeling (CMM) and Concrete Damage Plasticity Model (CDPM), to simulate and verify the experimental results numerically. The investigation revealed a significant connection between the simulation and experimental findings, with a negligible divergence of about 2.5%. The tight alignment between the suggested modeling approaches and the experimental design verifies their efficacy and highlights the correctness of the design. The little variation may be ascribed to intrinsic errors in the experimental and simulation parameters.