• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.83 no.6
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• pp.799-810
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• 2022

This study investigated the effect of the strengthening efficiency of unbonded steel-bar truss system on the out-of-plane behavior of perforated masonry walls. Four full-scale unreinforced masonry (URM) walls with two different planes were prepared using the unbonded steel-bar truss system and a URM walls without strengthening. All masonry walls were tested under constant axial and cyclic lateral loads. The obtained test results indicated that the pinching effect in the out-plane behavior of masonry walls tends to decrease in the in- and out-of-plane strengthened URM walls using the unbonded steel-bar truss system with the higher prestressing force ratio (R_p) of vertical reinforcing bars in the unbonded steel-bar truss system, regardless of the perforated type of the masonry wall. Consequently, the highest maximum shear resistance and cumulative dissipated energy at peak load in the post-peak behavior were observed in the in- and out-plane strengthened URM walls with the highest R_p values, which are 2.7 and 6.0 times higher than those of URM. In particular, the strengthening efficiency of the unbonded steel-bar truss system was primarily attributed to the vertical prestressed steel-bars rather than the diagonal steel-bars, which indicates that the strains in the vertical prestressed steel-bars at the peak load were approximately 1.6 times higher than those in the diagonal steel-bars.