Evaluation of Full-Scale Adobe Brick Walls under Uniform Pressure

Adobe walls have the inherent mass that significantly contributes to their blast resistance, but lack the energy-absorption capability. Therefore, it is necessary to develop engineering guides for predicting the response of such structures under blast to develop blast-retrofit designs. This paper will focus on the analytical and experimental programs for characterizing the static resistance function of full-scale adobe block walls. The adobe walls tested closely simulate the boundary conditions of a wall that is part of an adobe structure, including side walls and roof system. The experimental results were used to verify the 3D numerical models developed for predicting the resistance function of adobe walls and wallettes. Wallette adobe systems that were tested in four-point bending showed that the failure of an adobe structure is significantly related to the stability of an element. The un-retrofitted vacuum chamber test results were used to design and evaluate various blast retrofit systems.