CRITCAL REVIEW OF REINFORCED MASONARY IN SEISMIC PRONE AREA FOR DIFFERENT CODES

Plain masonry has been used as a construction material since very old age. Reinforced brick masonry is a relatively new type of construction with specific design procedures and construction techniques. Building codes have made provisions for reinforced brick masonry since 1953. Codes selected for this study includes Uniform Building Code 1997(UBC), Euro code 2005 (EC- 05), Turkish Code 1998 (TK-98) and National Building code of India 2005(NBCI-05) along with building code of Pakistan 2007 (BCP-07). The materials involved in reinforced brick masonry include bricks, mortar and reinforcement. The quality and size of bricks are different in different regions. The codes under consideration used different approach for reinforced brick masonry design. Few codes design, brick masonry using allowable stress design or empirical methods and others use ultimate strength design method. UBC-97 is the only code that designs reinforced brick masonry on empirical, allowable and ultimate strength design approach. UBC-97 was also found to be more economical than the other codes. This study also revealed that BCP-07 is based on UBC-97 and it may be revised to account for the construction practices and quality of masonry manufactured in Pakistan.