Brick masonry is one of the widely used materials for the construction of walls and columns in buildings. In many cases, the built walls and columns fail due to excess lateral loads, environmental degradation, and increased loading requirments due to changes in occupancy. In this paper, an experimental was conducted to understand the performance of building columns made of solid clay bricks strengthening with fiberglass and ferrocement techniques materials. In total, six columns were constructed, two columns were control columns (unconfined), two columns were strengthened and confined with fiberglass mesh and plaster, and the other two columns were strengthened and confined with ferrocement. The experimental results showed that the maximum axial load of unconfined specimens can be increased if they are confined by fiberglass or ferrocement systems. Both systems can be used to repair uncollapsed columns which have been loaded close to failure or exposed to strength deterioration.

Nowadays, applying new materials is widely used in concrete construction to study their effects in enhancing the properties and the durability of concrete. This research includes studying the using of manufactured aggregate, which is so-called '' Anti-slip sand '' in specific proportions to know its influence on strength properties of normal strength hardened concrete which involves compressive strength, flexural strength, tensile splitting strength, and density. Anti-slip sand at different rates of (25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) replaces the natural sand in the concrete mixture to investigate its effect on the properties of concrete. The study shows that the best results of concrete properties are found when replaced the natural sand by 100% of anti-slip sand. Compressive, flexural and tensile strengths of concrete are increased with increment ratios of (44%, 40%, and 20%) respectively compared with other concrete mixture contains only natural sand. In addition, the study shows that the density of hardened concrete is decreased from 2420 kg/m3 in concrete with 100% natural sand to 2360 kg/m3 with a decrement ratio of 2.5% in concrete with 100% anti-slip sand.