ABSTRACT
House is a basic requirement for a human being that provides shelter, and peoples' life safety becomes an essential factor to consider for such a structure. Various factors damage these structures, but the earthquake event is a crucial natural disaster that has taken thousands of people in past decades. The earthquake does not take life directly; it is the structure, which fails to withstand the seismic loading action and collapse down. Several approaches are available for improving systems' behavior, but only a few works have been done on the masonry structures, which provide shelter for approximately 40% of the world population. In this study, the dynamic behavior of masonry structure with the horizontal seismic band application is experimentally determined. Three reduced scale models- one with the reinforced concrete band, one with timber band, and the last one without band-were constructed. The extruded adobe brick and mud mortar were used as a construction material for all the model houses, and such practice is common in most developing nations. All the models were tested on the shake table using the same loading signal to compare their response behavior. A high-speed camera was also used to capture images; accelerometers and displacement sensors were installed at different locations on the structures to record the information. Digital Image Correlation (DIC), which provides non-contact optical measurement, has been essential in obtaining full-field measurement. The results show significant improvement in the structure's seismic response by the use of horizontal
