Seismo: Ensayo en Lima del Sistema de Albañilería Integral sobre edificios de ladrillo hueco y adobe

This paper presents an adaptation of the Integral Masonry System (IMS) developed in Europe under the trade name of the “AllWall System”, for adobe without mortar or hollow clay masonry walls with mortar, in order to allow the construction of housing in developing seismic areas. The prefabricated wire electrowelded galvanized truss-reinforcement is employed in the IMS. This truss-reinforcement may intersect in the three spatial directions and allows the construction of reinforced walls and slabs with these very lightweight and manageable components. These only require infilling with block masonry to provide sufficient rigidity to the structure. A two-storey 3 m x 3 m x 3 m adobe based integral masonry system has been tested on a seismic plate at one half scale at the PUCP (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru) in Lima (2008) in collaboration with the UPM (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) in order to assure the viability of this new type of building construction for seismic areas. Also similar test has been done with hollow brick in 2009, in the same Universities colaboration. The comparation of the results of these tests (at 0.5 scale of a 6 m x 6 m x 6 m building) have shown that the Earthquake - Integral Masonry System remains stable without significant cracking in adobe (2008) and without any cracks in hollow brick (2009)