FERROCEMENT - BRICK SANDWICH WALL APPLIED TO NON-ENGINEERED HOUSES

Abstract

Indonesian houses are generally categorized as non-engineered buildings that are constructed
without any proper structural analyses. Bricks have long been used for hundreds of years as main materials to
make houses for the reasons of simplicity and construction speed. Lesson learnt from the Padang earthquake
in 2009 concluded many casualties are resulted from the collapsed houses made of bricks. Ferrocement as a
construction material that made of wire mesh and mortar plaster become alternative to be used for retrofitting
brick-houses. In this paper, structural analyses of a typical non-engineered house and a retrofitted house
made of ferrocement-brick sandwich material are described. The ferrocement-brick composite material has a
role as the main structure in the non-engineered house. The series of tests on that sandwich material has been
done prior to the analyses. The results of the tests are then used to determine the strength criteria of the
analyzed house. A structural analysis of the house is done by using the finite element computer program. As
a comparison, an analysis of an ordinary brick wall house is described. As previously thought, the house with
walls made of the ferrocement-brick sandwich material can withstand the given earthquake loads. It is
concluded that the ferrocement-brick sandwich material is very useful to build earthquake resistant houses in
seismic prone areas such as the West Sumatra.