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Masonry Reinforcement Using Cabuya Fiber and Perimetral Electro-Welded Mesh

Abstract:

Ecuador is located in an earthquake prone zone and, therefore, has a seismic hazard that is considered latent, in other words, that always exists and that could be revealed at any moment. This premise leads to constructions that should have a particularly rigorous degree of structural safety and that, above all, should protect people's lives. This paper develops a proposal for structural reinforcement of block masonry walls through the use of mortars with cabuya fiber. This aims to be an eco-friendly solution since it uses raw materials from the Andean area. Two types of tests are carried out in order to verify the contribution of the cabuya fiber as structural reinforcement. The first type of test is executed with the reinforced mortars, which shows an improvement of 19.71% in compressive strength, compared to mortars without any type of reinforcement. The second type of test was carried out on two reinforced concrete frames infilled with block masonry, where it is shown that the percentage of strength improvement against seismic loads in a masonry reinforced using electro-welded mesh and cabuya fiber is 78.46% compared to simple infilled frames. Horizontal displacements at the top of the frame are also reduced by 32.04%. The results shows that the use of cabuya fibers and electro-welded mesh could be a different structural safety method, exploiting a ecofriendly resource that has been forgotten by farmers at the moment.