Pushover Testing of Circular Adobe Structure

Abstract

Many unreinforced adobe or mud-brick structures have in the past suffered severe damage from seismic forces and have caused a vast number of deaths. In contrast, some adobe buildings located in seismic regions have performed well under several seismic events. Researchers noticed that most existing circular adobe houses performed well in withstanding earthquakes even though some did not have any additional ductile reinforcement. This paper presents the investigation of seismic performance of unreinforced circular adobe buildings using static pushover testing. A scaled model (1:3 scale) of adobe circular structure were built and tested by static lateral load and pushed to total collapse. The results presented in the form of capacity curves, are compared with the expected lateral loading obtained from the static tilt testing carried out in earlier research. The outcome of this research can be used to evaluate the existing circular adobe houses and can give design recommendations of suitable configurations for new circular adobe buildings.