A full-scale test is conducted on stone masonry building specimen in the first ever state-of-art test facility in Bhutan, constructed in Department of Culture. The building specimen is the replication of the Bhutanese random rubble masonry houses. In this building specimen, a gabion mesh box is used as a one of the possible strengthening measures for new stone masonry house in mud mortar. Along with the gabion mesh box, reinforced concrete band (RC band) and reinforced concrete post (RC post) are also used. The material used for strengthening the building i.e., the gabion mesh box, reinforcement bars, cement are locally produced and easily available in the local market. The strengthening technique used is simple and do-able. Further, the technique is found to be feasible for stone masonry buildings.
The main objectives of the full-scale test are:
- To examine the strength and collapse mechanism of stone masonry building under static loading.
- To check the effectiveness of the gabion mesh box in improving the seismic capacity of the stone masonry buildings.
