International Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol. 13, No. 2, Transaction A: Civil Engineering, June 2015 Experimental in-plane behavior and retrofitting method of mud-brick walls F. Tootoonchy, B. Asgarian*, F. Danesh Received: July 2013, Revised: March 2014, Accepted: September 2014 Abstract Despite the rapid growth of engineering science especially in the modern structural engineering and application of new materials in civil engineering, a significant percentage of world population in different countries are living in adobe buildings made from mud-bricks. In this paper, by performing experimental study on scaled mud-brick walls under monotonic load, in- plane behavior of the walls have been investigated for different levels of vertical load. After recognizing damage mechanisms from experiment, a simple retrofitting method has been presented to upgrade wall performance. Experimental behavior of retrofitted walls was also studied. The proposed retrofitting method consists of using polypropylene lace and tarpaulin belts. As a result, a better performance of the walls in terms of shear capacity, ductility and energy absorption are observed by using proposed retrofitting method. Meanwhile, Proposed retrofitting method has significant effect in rocking mechanism delay and prevention of wall sudden collapse. Keywords: Mud-brick Wall, Retrofit, Ductility, Energy absorption, Polypropylene lace, Tarpaulin belt. 1. Introduction A mud-brick is a fire free or sun-dried brick which is made from a stiff mixture of highly content of clay, sand, water and an organic material such as straw. Mud-bricks are one of the oldest and most widely used construction materials. Adobe building made from mud-brick is a construction system that uses mud-brick to form bearing or non-bearing walls. It is estimated that about 30% of world’s population lives in adobe and mud-brick buildings. In addition a number of historical and archeological building made from mud-brick. A lot of mud-brick buildings are in seismic active areas. As mud-brick is very brittle and low-strength material with heavy mass. Building made from this type of material are highly vulnerable in seismic active areas. A sample of destroyed adobe house after Bam earthquake is shown in Fig. 1. The largest mud-brick structure is the Bam citadel which has been suffered serious damages during 2003 Bam earthquake. During Bam 2003 earthquake, most of the adobe buildings were destroyed, more than 26,000 people were died and over 60,000 were left without shelter [1]. Fig. 2 shows Bam citadel before and after 2003 earthquake. * Corresponding author: asgarian@kntu.ac.ir 1 M. S. in Structural Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, K.N.Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran 2 Associate Professor, Civil Engineering Faculty, K.N.Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran 3 Associate Professor, Civil Engineering Faculty , K.N.Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran Fig. 1 A view of one sample destroyed adobe house after Bam earthquake (before) Structure- Earthquake [ DOI: 10.22068/IJCE.13.2.191 ] [ Downloaded from ijce.iust.ac.ir on 2021-12-13 ] 1 / 11