Abstract
Besides the buildings with conventional one-brick thick solid masonry walls, two cost effective masonry wall constructions, viz, reduced thickness and cavity wall, have been studied for their lateral load resistance. The reduced thickness of wall was constructed with a combination of bricks on bed and bricks on edge; whereas the cavity wall was constructed with bricks on edge in Flemish bond using solid fired-earth bricks. Single storey one-room building models were subjected to static lateral load and shake table tests. The study shows that there is considerable reduction in shear strength of buildings with cost effective masonry and the reduction is more than the saving in the material, which is due to increase in the vertical mortar joints in both masonry types. The base isolation system, using Teflon sheet, shows great promise for adoption in conventional as well as the cost effective building construction as a measure of earthquake safety.