No abstract

Many parts of the world experienced devastating earthquakes in the recent past. It is observed that those collapsed reinforced concrete (RC) structures are decades old and not designed and detailed to resist seismic loads. Beam-column joints are the most affected structural components during earthquakes due to the discontinuous load path in the vicinity. Since, shear strength of beam column joint plays the major role on the performance of RC structures under earthquake, many models were proposed by researchers to predict the shear strength of beam-column joints using different idealizations, approaches and mechanisms. These can be categorized into plane stress-, explicit-, analytical-and empirical-models. In the present work, these models are critically reviewed and summarized. The concept, parameters considered, significant observations and their limitations of the most promising and robust models in predicting the joint shear behaviour are brought out in this paper.

Masonry is one of the most widely used conventional materials throughout the world but its failure mainly occurs due to low tensile resistance. The main objective of this study is to observe the effectiveness of the relatively new construction material Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC), in strengthening the brick masonry prism. In the present work TRC consisting of an overnight cementitious curing mortar (OCCM) along with alkali resistant glass textile which can resist high tensile stress is used for strengthening of unreinforced brick masonry. The technique adopted in this work is not time consuming and is also practically feasible. Tests were carried out to study the axial compressive behaviour of prisms strengthened with cast-in-place TRC overlays and pre-cast TRC laminae with varying reinforcement ratios. Detailed investigations were carried out to observe failure patterns and ultimate failure load. From observations, 4 ply TRC overlays were found to be more effective. Among all strengthening methods mortar bonded TRC laminae exhibited enhancement in terms of compressive strength. It is concluded that this technique may benefit many applications in the area of masonry retrofit.