Papers by Phuntsho Wangmo
International Journal of Architectural Heritage, Apr 28, 2023
International Journal of Architectural Heritage
12th International Conference on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions, 2021
Rammed earth (RE) building construction is still considered as one of the most popular and sustai... more Rammed earth (RE) building construction is still considered as one of the most popular and sustainable construction practice in the present day Bhutan [1], particularly in the Western region of the country. These structures are however found to be vulnerable to recent earthquake occurrences in the region. The current work is aimed towards improving the seismic performance of these traditional Bhutanese rammed earth buildings with practically feasible and effective solutions.
International Journal of Architectural Heritage, 2020
Rammed earth architecture is still widespread and alive in Bhutan, especially in rural villages, ... more Rammed earth architecture is still widespread and alive in Bhutan, especially in rural villages, where dwellings are built by the local community. The country recently suffered two intense earthqua...
RILEM Bookseries, 2019
This paper reports pull–down tests performed on full–scale two–storied rammed earth (RE) building... more This paper reports pull–down tests performed on full–scale two–storied rammed earth (RE) buildings to assess the out–of–plane performance of RE construction in Bhutan. An innovative strengthening technique is also proposed for strength enhancement of the RE walls. The tests involved two types of specimens, an unreinforced RE structure and an identical reinforced counterpart. The pull–down load was applied on top of the facade. The strengthening strategy involved reinforced concrete sections of dowels and wedges inserted between the RE blocks at regular intervals. The wooden floor beams at the first–floor level were also anchored to the RE blocks in the reinforced specimen. Micro–tremor measurements of the structures were done prior to the pull–down tests. A maximum of 59% increment in peak pull–down load was observed for the reinforced RE specimen compared to its unreinforced counterpart. The unreinforced RE wall showed damage to a larger area of facade, whereas, the reinforced RE s...
Construction and Building Materials, 2021
This paper reports on the series of element tests conducted on rammed earth (RE) wallettes to und... more This paper reports on the series of element tests conducted on rammed earth (RE) wallettes to understand their behavior under compression and shear loading while exploring the mesh-wrap strengthening technique to strengthen the RE wallete. Compressive strength and shear strength of RE wallettes are evaluated with varying parameters, namely RE layer thickness and drying periods. The influence of vertical stress on the shear strength of RE wallete is also assessed. Some essential mechanical parameters like elastic modulus, cohesion, and friction angle, are derived and discussed. Finite element models have been developed to simulate and support the experimental results.
CivilEng
The paper reports an experimental campaign to study the effectiveness of strengthening measures p... more The paper reports an experimental campaign to study the effectiveness of strengthening measures proposed for rammed earth (RE) wall in an out-of-plane direction. Two simple and feasible strengthening techniques were explored, namely, mesh-wrapped and timber-framed strengthening techniques. The test involved testing three full-scale U-shaped RE walls in an out-of-plane direction. The first specimen without any intervention served as the reference wall, while the two others were strengthened with two different strengthening methods. It was observed that both proposed strengthening techniques improved the load-carrying capacity of the wall and the maximum displacement and the energy absorption. The mesh-wrapped strengthening technique was found to be more effective than the timber-framed strengthening technique, which disrupted the visual aspects of the wall’s facade and needed proper anchoring to the foundation.
Journal of Building Engineering
Abstract This paper reports an experimental campaign to assess effectiveness of strengthening int... more Abstract This paper reports an experimental campaign to assess effectiveness of strengthening interventions on the out–of–plane performance of rammed earth (RE) structures in Bhutan. An innovative strengthening technique is proposed for strength enhancement of RE walls. The tests involved two types of specimens, an unreinforced RE structure and an identical reinforced counterpart. The strengthening strategy involved reinforced concrete sections of dowels and wedges inserted between the RE blocks at regular intervals. A floor anchorage system where wooden floor beams at the floor level are anchored to the RE blocks is also proposed. A maximum increment in peak pull–down load of 59% was observed for the reinforced RE specimen compared to its unreinforced counterpart. The unreinforced RE wall showed damage to a larger area of its facade, whereas the reinforced RE specimen only exhibited cracks in a relatively smaller zone, with a controlled failure mechanism. Detailed finite element models have also been developed to simulate and support the test observations.
International Journal of Architectural Heritage
ABSTRACT This article reports pull-down tests performed on rammed earth construction in Bhutan. T... more ABSTRACT This article reports pull-down tests performed on rammed earth construction in Bhutan. The pull–down specimens involved an old rammed earth building component as well as a newly prepared rammed earth wall. Both the wall specimens were tested in out-of-plane direction. Theoretical rigid body formulation and finite element (FE) models were developed to predict the response of the rammed earth structures under out-of-plane loading. The validated FE model was further extended to parametric study of material and physical characteristics of rammed earth construction and their effect on critical response quantities. The change in elastic modulus showed effect in the pre-cracking phase of the wall. Density of rammed earth on the other hand affected the post-peak response of the rammed earth wall. Furthermore, an increase in the physical characteristics, namely, the thickness of wall and the vertical superimposed load on top of the wall, enhanced the rocking resistance capacity of the out-of-plane loaded rammed earth walls.
The paper presents experimental and numerical works to assess the in-plane shear characteristics ... more The paper presents experimental and numerical works to assess the in-plane shear characteristics of rammed earth (RE) structures in Bhutan. The material characterization works involve compressive and tensile splitting strength tests on extracted cylindrical core samples. The effects of the RE layer thickness and drying period in the strength characteristics of the rammed earth is presented. The main experimental part reports in-plane shear tests on 3 test specimens, 1200 mm long, 1200 mm high, and 600 mm wide. The test matrix has unreinforced and reinforced specimens with variable RE layer thicknesses. For the reinforced RE specimen, the effectiveness of a simple intervention with insertion of reinforced concrete dowel at the RE block interface as a strengthening measure is discussed. Furthermore, corresponding finite element models were developed to verify the test observations. Both the experimental observations and numerical computations showed the effectiveness of proposed inter...
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Papers by Phuntsho Wangmo