Strength assessment of sandwich-type ferrocement structural walls under cyclic loading

This study introduces several configurations of ferrocement walls tested under severe cy-clic load conditions, in order to assess their seismic features to be used in the construction of dwelling houses. The ferrocement walls have been built in a sandwich-type configura-tion composed of layers of hexagonal wire mesh, welded wire mesh and reinforcing bars, along with a wooden-cement core. A total of eight full-scale walls were tested under severe cyclic loading conditions; from those results the capacity of the system was evaluated in terms of shear strength, ductility, energy dissipation, damping and crack patterns. The re-search evidences that these novel configurations of ferrocement walls have a great potential of being applied as a low-cost construction system on earthquake prone regions due to the high energy dissipation, stiffness and low strength degradation properties, presented at large displacement rates.