A model proposal for adaptation or reinforced masonry to circumstances of Turkey for residential buildings

Ill ABSTRACT Although masonry buildings take considerable part in housing presence of Türkiye, masonry practice mostly involves plain masonry buildings in rural areas and does not involve reinforced masonry. It can be said that masonry buildings are considered as 'plain building nonresistant to earthquake' and even disdained in Türkiye, due to possible insufficiency of mostly constructed plain masonry buildings resulting from easily avoidable application errors or material faults. Even our engineers have tended to treat masonry as gravity construction and to use conventional reinforced concrete for structures, which are subjected to flexural stresses. The introduction of reinforced masonry allows wall thicknesses to be decreased dramatically and provides a rational method to design masonry walls to resist dynamic lateral loads. In various parts of the World, U.S.A. and New Zealand in particular, reinforced masonry is now widely used as an economical and earthquake resistant form of construction, especially for the structures that need small spaces but do not require flexible planning, such as motels and residential buildings. Regarding reinforced masonry as an adequate construction system to satisfy housing shortage problem of Türkiye in a safe manner, it is an important necessity to improve present masonry practice of Türkiye by introducing reinforced masonry. Relating to this necessity, a construction model based on reinforced masonry which is not used - even not known - in our country for earthquake resistant multi-storey residential buildings is constituted in this study according to conditions of Türkiye. The model is constituted for low rise multi-storey (up to five storeys) residential buildings in all seismic zones and also defines structural elements, materials and reinforcement provisions and design approach.