Experimental study on traditional mud shear wall in-filled in timber frames

Due to huge destruction of traditional timber structures induced by the earthquake of 1999, many efforts have been invested to prevent these valuable heritages from the next nature disaster that might happen in the future. This study conducted full-scale experiments on mud shear walls in Taiwan, in which the aspect ratio as well as the dimensions of the shear walls were taken into consideration. The experimental design was planned based upon and extensive field survey carried out in the early stage of a multi-year project. The failure pattern and the effect induced by the dimensions were discussed in this study. An appropriate model for estimation of shear strength of these mud shear walls is also proposed in this study.