PLASTERED WIRE-MESH BANDAGED: AN EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUE FOR SEISMIC STRENGTHENING OF THE UNCONFINED BRICK MASONRY HOUSING IN PARIAMAN CITY, WEST SUMATERA, INDONESIA

In Pariaman city, West Sumatera, INDONESIA, most of the masonry housing are made of unconfined burnt brick masonry walls. As is located in the area with high seismic activity, this type of housing may be suffering significant damage in the event of strong earthquake. Therefore, a strengthening technique of the masonry housing prior to the enactment of current seismic codes plays an important role in the seismic risk mitigation. This paper reports the application program of the plastered wire-mesh bandaged (ferrocement layers) technique for strengthening the unconfined brick masonry house in Pariaman region. The strengthening technique was applied basedon the shaking test results which was conducted by National research Institute for earth science and Disaster prevention (NIED) and Mie University, Japan. In current proposed technique, the additional pseudo-confinement was pasted to the existing unconfined brick masonry house. Before mortar was plastered, at first, the galvanized wire-mesh sheet had to nailed to selected-position, such that all unconfined brick masonry walls were connected and tied by the plastered wire-mesh bandaged. Application of the strengthening technique to a house in Pariaman City by trained local labor has been shown the effectively of the current technique due to simple it application and cheaper of the construction material price. It seems that the presence technique may be applied to strengthen and/or to retrofit all unconfined brick masonry housing in Pariaman city.