PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF CONFINED MASONRY BUILDINGS

Abstract

Past earthquakes have resulted in huge loss of life and property due to poor performance of intill masonry buildings and unreinforced masonry buildings. A recent building technology known as the confined masonry building had showed excellent performance in past earthquakes, which is a type of building where designers takes into account of the stiffness of the masonry wall. This type of buildings can used in regions where masonry is used for economical traditional reasons, but in India it is not popular. In developing countries like India, there should be guidelines for the design and construction of confined masonry buildings. In this dissertation study was conducted to evaluate the performance of four storeyed and six storeyed confined masonry buildings with plan 10 bays x 3bays in earthquake zone 4 and 5 of India and thereby finding the optimum dimensions of confining elements for each zone and also studied the effect of reinforced concrete band around the opening.