A PARAMETRIC STUDY ON RESPONSE OF FRP STRENGTHENED MASONRY WALLS UNDER BLAST LOADING

The present study deals with the numerically predicted response of a masonry wall strengthened in flexure using glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) longitudinal strips and subjected to equivalent blast static loading. Threat levels to the blast loading in terms of support rotation of the wall are compared with the experimental results available in literature. A parametric study has been carried out to examine the effect of thickness, width, strength of FRP strips, and different laminates, i.e., cross-ply, angle-ply and quasi-isotropic on the response of the masonry wall. Moreover, the effect of the slenderness ratio, i.e., L/d and aspect ratio i.e., L/B of the wall are also considered in the parametric study. It is observed that equivalent static loading could be used for masonry wall subjected to blast loading to predict the threat level under blast situation.