Environmentally friendlier strengthening of masonry structure using direct greening system: an experimental study

Abstract

The green wall benefts from existing buildings have ever more attracted the attention of the scientifc community. Past studies mainly focus on the ecological and environmental advantage of existing structures, while few works address the structural benefts of the green wall. In the present study, the structural impact of the typical direct greening system referred to masonry structures is assessed. This experimental program consists of direct shear, fexural bending and in-plane test to evaluate the efect of green walls strengthening efect on the basic characteristic of masonry. For the in-plane test, wall dimensions were 900×75 0×105 mm3 and consisted of 10 brick rows of 4 bricks each. The horizontal load was applied by means of a hydraulic actuator. Results show that after the initial breaking point, the post-peak strength is higher for green walls strengthened panels compared with that of non-retroftted masonry panel. Even though the green wall strengthened masonry was not showing any improvement in the initial strength, it shows the reasonable improvement in residual strength. Also, it improves the structural behavior in terms of stifness and energy dissipation capacity. Considering the overall perfor mance, green wall strengthening can efectively improve the residual structural performance of masonry houses. Additional structural performance, to encourage retroftting, inexpensive and easy to implement technical solutions are desirable. A direct greening system satisfes these requirements.