1 Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Catholic University of Peru, gvillag@pucp.edu.pe
2 Principal Professors, Department of Civil Engineering, Catholic University of Peru, mblondet@pucp.pe , dquiun@pucp.edu.pe
ABSTRACT
The 2010 Haiti earthquake caused more than 233 thousand deaths and around 1.2 million people lost their houses. Most of the collapsed or damaged structures were built informally with a traditional construction system consisting of reinforced concrete frames infilled with concrete block masonry.
This paper presents preliminary results of a research project developed at the Catholic University of Peru, whose objective is to provide a safe construction technology for Haiti based on confined masonry built with local materials. In order to reproduce Haitian masonry, concrete blocks were fabricated with low strength concrete. Two full-scale masonry walls (3 m x 3 m x 0.25 m) were built and tested under cyclic lateral load. The first wall (W1) represented traditional Haitian construction: a concrete frame was built first and infilled with concrete blocks. The second wall (W2) was built with confined masonry: the wall was built first, then the confining reinforced concrete elements. Small constructive changes were also introduced in the stirrups and the wetting of the blocks prior to laying. wetting of the blocks prior to laying.
Both walls were tested following the same pattern. Wall W1 developed large cracks which separated the masonry from the concrete frame. In a real earthquake, this wall would overturn out of plane. Wall W2 developed the typical shear diagonal cracks and the confining elements were able to maintain the wall integrity. Wall W2 was 15% stronger than wall W1 and its failure mode was much better. These results are encouraging and the work will continue by exploring other construction improvements.
KEYWORDS: confined masonry, concrete blocks, cyclic load test
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