FERROCEMENT - BRICK SANDWICH WALL APPLIED TO NON-ENGINEERED HOUSES

Abstract

Indonesian houses are generally categorized as non-engineered buildings that are constructedwithout any proper structural analyses. Bricks have long been used for hundreds of years as main materials tomake houses for the reasons of simplicity and construction speed. Lesson learnt from the Padang earthquakein 2009 concluded many casualties are resulted from the collapsed houses made of bricks. Ferrocement as aconstruction material that made of wire mesh and mortar plaster become alternative to be used for retrofittingbrick-houses. In this paper, structural analyses of a typical non-engineered house and a retrofitted housemade of ferrocement-brick sandwich material are described. The ferrocement-brick composite material has arole as the main structure in the non-engineered house. The series of tests on that sandwich material has beendone prior to the analyses. The results of the tests are then used to determine the strength criteria of theanalyzed house. A structural analysis of the house is done by using the finite element computer program. Asa comparison, an analysis of an ordinary brick wall house is described. As previously thought, the house withwalls made of the ferrocement-brick sandwich material can withstand the given earthquake loads. It isconcluded that the ferrocement-brick sandwich material is very useful to build earthquake resistant houses inseismic prone areas such as the West Sumatra.