Behaviour of ventilated double layer external wall briquettes under earthquake loading

Ventilated double layer briquette is used as external walls in the construction of classical as well as modern buildings that are built in regions having climates with high temperatures or rainy and windy seasons. In this construction technique, the external layer which acts as shield against rain, wind and solar rays, and internal layer are laid separately and then interconnected to each other with steel ties. The aim of using such briquettes in the construction of external walls is to obtain ventilated double layer wall by just laying single layer of briquettes. The staggering of vertical joints provides better bond and added structural strength. The hollow cores should be directly above one another so that they can be filled with additional thermal insulation materials as the wall constructed, if required. In this paper, the earthquake response of two walls, one built using the new briquette produced from normal concrete mortar and the other constructed using the proposed briquette made out of lightweight pumice concrete mortar are studied. It was found that the wall produced using lightweight pumice concrete mortar behaves better under earthquake loads and it has higher energy absorption capacity than the other.