Seismic Testing of Single-Story Masonry Houses: Part 2

This paper describes the performance of a series of single-story masonry houses observed during a shaking table test program carried out at the University of California Earthquake Engineering Research Center (EERC), under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The design of the test structures and the conduct of the tests on the earthquake simulator are described in a companion paper. In evaluating the observed performance, the intensity of the test motions was characterized by the measured effective peak acceleration (EPA) so that they could be related to Uniform Building Code seismic zone 2. Based on the observed behavior, it is recommended that zone 2 be divided into subzone 2A for EPA values up to 0.1 g and subzone 2B for values between 0.1 g and 0.2 g. The observed results demonstrate that masonry houses without reinforcement may be permitted in both parts of zone 2 provided that the design guidelines recommended for each subzone are followed.