Traditional houses form an
integral part of the unique landscape of Bhutan. Unfortunately, these
structures are highly vulnerable to seismic activities, but there are only limited
research works in this field. Thus this paper deals explicitly on the
development of seismic technology for strengthening such random rubble masonry
structures in mud and cement mortars. This study’s basis is the full-scale
quasi-static test conducted on two-storied residential houses designed based on
a representative sampling of traditional houses for unreinforced and
retrofitted types. The proposed seismic intervention is the mesh-wrap retrofitting
technique. Furthermore, we developed a numerical model based on the Finite
Element Method and conducted non-linear pushover analyses, which was capable of
simulating the experiment. Finally, this study presents the
first-of-its-kind conventional fragility curves for traditional Bhutanese
residential houses, generated based on the Capacity Spectrum Method.
Keywords: Stone masonry,
Retrofitting, Experimental works, Finite Element Method, Fragility curves.