Experimental Study of Masonry Wall Strengthened by Polypropylene Fiber Mortar

Abstract

Based on previous studies, the average strength of Indonesia's masonry wall shows a weak compressive strength that increases the vulnerability of buildings with masonry walls towards the seismic load. This study presents an experimental investigation of the masonry wall's flexural capacity strengthened with Polypropylene Fiber (PP Fiber). In general, the experiments were divided into two groups: the masonry wall with PP Fiber in a joint mortar and the masonry wall with PP Fiber in a plastering. The investigation was carried out on twelve specimens. The specimens consisted of three standard masonry wall (DBK) samples as the controlled specimens, which are without plastering and PP Fiber, three masonry wall samples with PP Fiber (DBP) in a joint mortar, three masonry wall samples with normal plastering (DBKP), and three masonry wall samples with PP Fiber in a joint mortar and plastering (DBPP). The experimental investigation proved that the addition of PP Fiber to the mortar mixture at joint masonry mortar could increase the masonry wall's flexural capacity. The results showed that the mortar with 8% PP Fiber improves the compressive strength by 58.46%. The flexural testing showed that 8% PP Fiber to the mortar could increase the flexural capacity to 35.8%. The maximum deflection also increases as much as 38.58% for masonry walls with PP Fiber on mortar and plastering, compared to the masonry wall without PP Fiber. In addition, the presence of Polypropylene Fiber contributes to give a higher flexural capacity.