Review Article
A critical review of retrofitting methods for unreinforced masonry structures

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2013.12.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings are common throughout Latin America, the Himalayan region, Eastern Europe, Indian subcontinent and other parts of Asia. It has been observed that these buildings cannot withstand the lateral loads imposed by an earthquake and often fails, in a brittle manner. Methods for retrofitting URM buildings to increase the time required for collapse and also to improve the overall strength widely vary. This review has collated information on various types of retrofitting methods either under research or early implementation. Furthermore, these methods are categorized and critically analyzed to help further understand which methods are most suitable for future research or application in developing countries. The comparison of the different methods is based on economy, sustainability and buildability and provides a useful insight. The study may provide useful guidance to policy makers, planners, designers, architects and engineers in choosing a suitable retrofitting methodology.

Section snippets

Background to the problem

Earthquakes are results of the deformations of tectonic plates on two sides of a fault resulting from the tendency of relative displacement between the two tectonic plates. These deformations take place over the years, strain energy keeps on accumulating in the tectonic plates. Finally, a slip occurs at the fault when the plates slips back to their original undeformed shape suddenly releasing a tremendous amount of energy. The above process generates earthquakes as per the classical elastic

Types of URM buildings vulnerable to collapse during earthquakes

URM buildings can broadly be arranged into three common categories: adobe, brick and stone masonry. Each of these has features and construction methods that are dependent on its geographic location and level of local expertise. Although cheap and easy to build, all URM buildings have been observed to be susceptible to earthquakes, as will be explained in this review.

Common failure mechanisms of URM buildings

Construction methods and technologies are dependent on local conditions and level of engineering expertise as well as demographic factors. For example, URM structures are common in North America but there are building codes in place to regulate construction and determine how well protected structures are from seismic loading. In contrast, the rapid urbanization of countries such as Nepal has resulted in a huge rise in demand for quick and cheap housing without regulation or controls in place to

General surface treatment

The surface treatment process involves constructing a steel or polymer mesh around the building

Summary and conclusions

The study begins with broad idea about the casualties due to past earthquakes in about last 100 years discussed through presentation of Table 1. Following such discussions, historic evolution of various earthquake resisting practices have discussed and presented in Table 2. The importance of failure of adobe and masonry buildings is then discussed to show that such buildings form a large part of the habitat of the ordinary people. Thus, failure of such building may have great impact on human

Acknowledgments:

The first author would like to thank the project students [Josh Macabuag, Louisa Man, Andrew Smith, Thomas Redman, Kate Humphreys and Luke Hobbs] over the years for contributing to the study. Some of the tests reported were carried out at the BLADE [Bristol Lab for Advanced Dynamic Engineering] laboratories.

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