ANALYTICAL STUDY ON SEISMIC BEHAVIOR OF URM HOLLOW BRICK HOUSES RETROFITTED USING FERROCEMENT LAYERS

Abstract

Many simple residential buildings constructed with unreinforced masonry (URM) hollow bricks were notably damaged during the 2022 West Pasaman Earthquake in Indonesia. URM buildings face a significant risk of lateral loads during earthquakes due to their low ductility and tensile strength. One way to retrofit these URM hollow brick houses is using the ferrocement layer method. This study focuses on an analytical study of seismic behavior on a typical URM hollow brick house in West Pasaman damaged by the 2022 West Pasaman Earthquake, which was retrofitted using the ferrocement layer method. In this analytical study, two simple URM hollow brick house prototypes commonly found in West Pasaman were analyzed: an original URM hollow brick house and the URM hollow brick house retrofitted with ferrocement layers. Four variations of time history earthquake acceleration loads were applied to these models: 0.3 g, 0.6 g, 1.0 g, and 1.5 g. The tensile stress pattern on the walls of a retrofitted URM hollow brick house model across different earthquake acceleration scenarios is compared to that of the original URM hollow brick house model. The analytical results show that retrofitting a URM hollow brick house with ferrocement layers not only enhances the walls' strength but also diminishes tensile stress levels. The capacity of the URM hollow brick house improves by 70% when it is retrofitted using ferrocement layers. So, the URM hollow brick houses with ferrocement layers will be safe against earthquakes.