Confined masonry construction for India: a techno economical solution for improved seismic behaviour

Masonry constructions are the pervasive building stock in India. However, such constructions suffer widespread damage even at moderate ground shaking due to non-engineered construction. Alternatively, confined masonry shows better promise as a technology that has performed satisfactorily during past earthquakes worldwide. Present article outlines scenario of masonry construction in India, performance of confined masonry in past earthquakes and studies on confined masonry worldwide. The article also encompasses experimental seismic performance of full-scale models of unreinforced masonry (URM), reinforced masonry (RM) and confined masonry (CM) buildings in Indian context under quasi-static reversed cyclic lateral loading in terms of damage pattern, lateral strength, drift and stiffness. The cost analysis of URM, RM, CM and reinforced concrete (RC) residential buildings for a set of 20 samples in seismic Zone IV, keeping uniform input parameters, showed cost reduction in CM buildings when compared to RC buildings.