Efficacy of waste plastic towards enhancement of shear and flexure carrying capacity of masonry structures

Rapid growth in the population has resulted in a significant rise in the utilization of consumer plastic like polyethylene terephthalate (PET) all over the world, which in turn, has resulted in a large amount of plastic waste. Further, inappropriate plastic waste management has ill effects on environmental resources. To tackle this issue, previous research has explored the idea of using PET waste in concrete; however, the utilization of PET waste in the field of masonry structures is not studied much. Masonry structures are vulnerable to earthquakes due to their large self-weight and weakness against tensile forces. As a result, it is imperative that the structural performance of masonry structures against seismic forces be improved. In this context, laboratory experiments were conducted in the current study to investigate the use of PET bottle fibers as reinforcement in the mortar. The effect of this PET reinforced mortar on various properties of masonry wallettes, such as flexural strength, shear strength, stiffness, shear modulus, young's modulus, displacement ductility, and energy ductility, were experimentally investigated. To optimize the reinforcement, two fiber lengths (18 mm and 35 mm), as well as 5 different fiber content percentages (0.1%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 0.75%, and 1% of total weight), were used. The findings of the experiment revealed a ductile failure of reinforced wallettes and a reduction in crack width. Substantial increases in the flexural strength (up to 139.15%) and shear strength (up to 124.07%) of strengthened masonry wallettes compared to unreinforced masonry wallettes were also observed.