| Abstrakt: |
Building with rammed earth has become increasingly popular in recent years because it is highly sustainable and has little environmental impact. More than half of the world's population lives in earthen houses, many of which are located in earthquake-prone areas such as Croatia. However, their seismic performance still needs to be researched, especially considering local construction techniques. One of the first steps in this process is the experimental testing of such walls. Four models of rammed earth walls were constructed using traditional local building techniques and experimentally tested under in-plane cyclic loading to investigate their seismic behaviour. The model walls were built using locally available soil material. The new particle size distribution envelope for determining the suitability of soil material for rammed earth construction was proposed for the first time. The building material was chosen according to the envelope. Moreover, walls were made using two different material compositions—i.e., natural soil from eastern Croatia and "man-made" soil with the addition of fine gravel. The main objective, the seismic performance of the RE walls, was evaluated in terms of their bearing capacity, behaviour after yielding, failure mode, stiffness degradation, initial elastic stiffness, and energy dissipation capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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