Rowlock cavity wall was widely used in rural house in Southern Jiangsu Province from 1980s to 1990s. As one type of masonry structures, the seismic performance of rowlock cavity wall has rarely been studied on. Based on the report of General Seismic Investigation in Jiangsu Qidong, one 1/2-scale rowlock cavity wall structure was modeled as the existing rural house, and was tested on shaking table in lab of Southeast University. After analyzing the failure state of the model, and examining the structural parameters such as natural frequency, damping ratio, floor acceleration, floor shift, strain and crack of the model in load condition of different earthquake wave and intensity, the seismic performance of rowlock wall structure was assessed. And the seismic capacity of the whole model and each piece of rowlock wall was also analyzed. Based on the mortar strength field inspected in model wall, the seismic capacity of model structure under the action of rarely occurred earthquake of level 6 seismic precautionary intensity was estimated. The result showed that the model structure would collapse under the load condition. Obviously, this can not satisfy the seismic precautionary requirement in Code for Seismic Design of Buildings (GB50011-2001). Therefore, some principal reinforcement suggestions were discussed and proposed for existing rowlock cavity wall buildings. The research result of this paper could provide some theoretical foundation for the Aseismic Residential Project of rural peasant house, and also could be referred to for further research on rowlock cavity wall structures.
Shaking table testing of an existing masonry building: assessment and improvement of the seismic performance