huangyhg

unreinforced masonry in low seismic regions
hi guys,
does anyone detail unreinforced mansonry these days?
i am situated in what is "believed" to be a low seismic region of the world where alot of internal partitions are generally unreinforced masonry.
the thing is, 1000km south of where i practice, a rogue earthquake struck a mining port and killed a relatively high number of people from unreinforced masonry collapse, considering the population of the township and magnitude of the earthquake. similarly, this town was also located in a low seismic zone according to the earthquake code at the time.
is it good practice to detail nominal reinforcement for internal partitions, just to prevent collapse and hold the wall vertical in the event of an earthquake?
my first thought would be, what do the codes say?
for instance, the uk would be deemed a 'low seismic region' although we do occasionally have earthquakes. the magnitude is pretty low with most structural damage being fairly superficial (chimney pots, roof tiles etc). i can't think of any building collapses due to an earthquake.
in the uk most masonry buildings are pretty small and as such are unreinforced. i have only designed one reinforced masonry building and that was because the client wanted no internal walls hence no returns.
if you are concerned about it, and its similarity to this other township i would discuss with the client. raise the safety concerns you have. are you happy designing something that you feel could endanger life, especially if you have evidence to support that.
but, on the other hand who is going to pay for it?
where are you designing for?
no one wants an engineer to come in and spend lots of money engineering a system that doesn't match what is typically done in that area. on the other hand, no engineer wants to contribute to mass damage that occurs to an area because the locality doesn't have effective building codes.
my preference is a ductile failure but i would have a problem imposing that preference on a client that doesn't want to spend the extra money for something that is not likely needed.
no reason not to use unreinforced masonry in low seismic.

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