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Physical Performance of Traditional Brick Mud Masonry

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 2nd International Conference on Earthquake Engineering and Post Disaster Reconstruction Planning
25 – 27 April, 2019, Bhaktapur, Nepal

Physical Performance of Traditional Brick Mud Masonry

Muskan Sharma Kuinkel1, Sona Sukubhatu2 and Rameswor Shrestha3

Abstract
Nepal is an earthquake prone country and the risk it faces from the earthquake is very high. The recent
earthquake in 2072 B.S. (2015 A.D.) had caused tremendous amount of loss in lives and properties in
Nepal. The loss was caused by the physical constructions. So, in order to be safe from the hazards,
engineered design of all the structures has been necessary. The design and analysis should be checked
and revised time and often. However, it has been an interesting topic of study on the types of masonry
that had been used in the past days because there are still some structures built in the historic time that
have not failed due to the seismic activities. So, it is important to study the behaviour and properties
of these structures during seismic activities and the way they fail. This study focuses on determining
the strength of traditional masonry structures used in Nepal during the past days. A type of traditional
brick found around the area of Bhaktapur Durbar Square known as “Ma-appa” has been used to
perform this study. And masonry elements have been prepared with the mud mortar. In addition, the
mortar used in the test is prepared with the varying proportion of sand in order to study the effect of
sand content in the strength of masonry. The main objective of the research is to study the strength of
mud masonry and find out whether they are structurally suitable to be used as masonry element or not.
The masonry is analysed by determining the compressive strength parameter. The masonry elements
are subjected to compression and the test results are analysed to determine the performance of the
masonry. Furthermore, the stress-strain relationship of the masonry elements has also been studied
from the test.

Keywords: Mud masonry; Compressive strength, Masonry elements.

1. Introduction
Masonry structure are built from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by
mortar. Masonry is generally a highly durable form of construction (Henry, Sinha, & Davies, 2004;
Rashmi, Jagadish, & Nethravathi, 2014). Nepal has witnessed major earthquakes if to be looked back
at the history. The recent Earthquake that hit Nepal on 25th April, 2015 destroyed buildings,
architectures and many assests of the country. The reasons for this massive destruction of structures
are considered to be the lack of engineered design of structures, inappopriate use of construction
materials and inadequate knowledge of construction (Cross, 2015). But, besides the destruction, there
is a fascinating fact that many historical monuments and few masonry buildings are still surviving
without much damage. Hence, this has been a topic to study the properties of the masonry units that
had been used to build these structures. The properties of masonry structures differs as per resource,
construction materials like bricks, mortars and the technology avaibility whereas masonry structures
have strong behaviour in compression but are generally weak in tension, so the compressive strength
of masonry is a very important factor which should be considered in order to build a safe structure
(Thapa & Dhakal, 2015).
The study aims to find out whether mud masonry used in the early periods are strong enough to be
used for construction. For that, strength of brick, mud mortar and masonry elements were tested.
Compressive Strength is the bearing capacity of a material or structure to withstand the gradually
applied loads without rupture but tending to reduce the size of the structure or material (Thapa &
Dhakal, 2015).
Various studies regarding the masonry has been proposed by many reasearchers. According to
Sahlin (1971), the brick wall strength decreases about 25 to 50% of individual strength of brick and
1 Department of Civil Engineering, Khwopa College of Engineering, Nepal, muskansharmakuinkel@gmail.com
2 Department of Civil Engineering, Khwopa College of Engineering, Nepal, sonasukubhatu@gmail.com
3 Department of Civil Engineering, Khwopa College of Engineering, Nepal, rameswor.sth@gmail.com

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the strength depends upon the mortar strength as well as the interficial bond strength between the
mortar and brick. Mud is a composition of soil particles of varying sizes, so the properties of mud
used in mortar is affected by clay content and Atterberg Limits. Sand content also affects the
compressive strength of mud mortar (Lekshmi, Vishnudas, & Nair, 2016). The presence of clay in
moderate amounts in a soil is desirable. Since clay has cohesive nature, it imparts plasticity to the soil
under moist conditions, however there are facts that clay has high affinity towards water hence clayey
soils swell in presence of water and shrinks in its absence (Rashmi, Jagadish, & Nethravathi, 2014).
Also, as per IS 13077-1991, the Clay content in the soil should be within the limit, clay content should
range between 18-22% by weight and a total content of clay and silt greater than 60% is considered
good for construction. Clay content effects on physical properties of soil which can also be
determined by Atterberg limit test. Atterberg limits are used extensively for determining the
properties of soil by determining the amount of water in the soil. The applicability of clay is however
dependent on an appreciable knowledge of its mineral content and chemical composition
(Evbuomwan, Ifebhor, & Atuka, 2013).

2. Materials and Methods

Bricks: As a traditional brick, we used special type of brick called ‘Ma-appa’ Fig. 1(a), which is
commonly found in the old and traditional monuments and houses of Kathmandu valley. Bricks were
collected from the renovating sites of Bhaktapur. The scaled down brick is shown in Fig. 1(b).

Mud: Mud used for the mortar was collected from Bhaktapur area. The mud was in the form of lumps
which were crushed and sieved through 4.75 mm sieve to control lump of soil and gravels. Additional
10%, 20% and 30% sand were used to prepare variety of mortars. Standard sand of particle size 0.09
mm, 0.5 mm and 2 mm were added at the ratio of 1:1.5:2.5 in the original soil. The sand used was
manufactured sand.

Test Machines: Universal Testing Machine (UTM) was used to perform the compression test of
bricks and brick masonry. To test mortars, Unconfined Compression Testing Machine, Fig. 3, was
used. For determining the Liquid Limit of soil, Casagandre’s Apparatus was used. All the tests were
done at the testing laboratory of Khwopa College of Engineering.

Table 1. Dimensions of the samples

Average Dimensions (mm)
S.N. Items
Length Breadth Thickness
1 Scaled Brick Size 50 51 48
2 Mortar Cube Size 70 70 70
3 Masonry Element 190 120 340

2.1 Brick compression test

Bricks were tested by scaling down the original brick to form cuboid as shown in Fig. 1(b).
Compressive strength of the brick was tested in saturated surface dry condition under the Universal
Testing Machine after brick was kept in water for 24 hours. Load was gradually applied and the
deformations for corresponding value of load was also noted down which helped in generating the
stress and displacement curve.

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25 – 27 April, 2019, Bhaktapur, Nepal

(a) (b)
Fig. 1. Bricks and brick cubes used for the test

2.2 Compressive strength test of masonry element

IS: 1905-1987, has specified that the masonry specimen to be tested shall have height to width ratio
between 2 and 5 which has been followed in the test. The compressive strength of masonry was tested
by preparing three stack bonded brick wall for each mortar type after cured for 45 days in UTM. The
displacement for respective application of load was also recorded. The test results are shown in Fig. 7
and Fig. 8.

(a) (b)
Fig. 2. Masonry element subjected to compression

2.3 Mud and mortar test

Mud Mortar varies based on composition viz; clay, sand and other minerals available in the soil.
Various properties of the mud such as Liquid Limit, Plastic Limit, Grain Size Distribution were
obtained performing the respective tests in the laboratory. The tests were performed as stated in IS
2720-1985 Part 4 and Part 5.
Three Mortar cubes with dimensions as stated in Table 1, for each proportion of sand were
prepared along with cube without addition of sand. These samples were tested under unconfined
compression testing machine after curing for 45 days to obtain the cube strength. The test results for
each type of mortar is shown in Fig. 5.

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25 – 27 April, 2019, Bhaktapur, Nepal

Fig. 3. Unconfined Compressive Strength testing machine

3. Results and Discussion

3.1 Soil test

From the hydrometer analysis, clay content in the soil was found to be 20.95% which is within the
limit for soil to have a good consistency as stated by IS 13077-1991. The atterberg limits are shown in
Fig. 4. Comparing the obtained results with A- line classification chart (Arora, 2010), that sample is
above the A- line which means the soil is inorganic clay with intermediate plasticity. The workability
chart shows that the mud used has optimum moulding property (Bain & Highly, 1979).

40

30

20

10

0
Liquid Limit Plasticity Index Plastic Limit

Fig. 4. Bar Diagram representing the Atterberg Limits of the mud used in mortar.

3.2 Compressive strength of mortar

The compressive strength obtained for each kind of mortar type is shown in Fig.5 and Fig. 6 show the
stress-strain relation of each kind of mortar respectively. In the diagrams, it can be clearly seen that
considerable amount of sand did not highly affect the strength of mortar. However, it can also be seen
that mortar with high amount of sand obtained the least compressive strength. The stress-strain curve
shows that the failure pattern of all four mortar types were linear.

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25 – 27 April, 2019, Bhaktapur, Nepal

Fig. 5. Bar Diagram for compressive strength of mortar with respect to sand proportion

(a) (b)

(c) d)
Fig. 6. Stress-Strain diagram of motar for various compositiom of sand in mortar

3.3 Compressive Strength of brick and masonry

The traditional bricks and the mortar had been used to perform in the masonry with varying
composition of sand in mortar. From all the tests performed, various results were achieved regarding
the masonry and the masonry Units. The Average Compressive Strength of the brick cubes was 15.32

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25 – 27 April, 2019, Bhaktapur, Nepal

N/mm2. Similarly, the Compressive Strength of masonry element with different proportion of sand in
the mortar was found as given in Fig. 7. From the comparision between the original compressive
strength of individual brick to that of masonry it can be known that, the masonry after the construction
gains about 25% of the strength of brick.

Fig. 7. Bar diagram for compressive strength with respect to sand proportion

From the above result, it can be concluded that the masonry specimen with optimum quantity of
clay content in mortar provides higher strength. On the contrary that the proportion of sand increases,
the strength seems to be decreasing in linear way. The stress displacement curve for all the masonry
specimen obtained is shown in Fig. 8.

(a) (b)

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25 – 27 April, 2019, Bhaktapur, Nepal

(c) (d)

Fig. 8. Stress-displacement diagram of masonry for various compositiom of sand in mortar

4. Conclusion and Recommendation

This study revealed the physical properties of traditional masonry and masonry units that were used as
a construction material in the early period. Compressive Strength has only been used as a parameter to
study the strength of the masonry elements. From all the test results obtained, it can be concluded that
the traditional masonry is not weak and if constructed with proper design and skill, it can provide
adequate strength. It is also clear why most of the monuments and some structural buildings did not
collapse during the earthquake disaster. The compressive strength obtained is novel and can be used
for further analysis of the structure. Also, the mud that was used has required clay content but it
should have low plasticity. It can also be seen that both the mortar and masonry with no sand content
has the highest strength in comparison to other compositions. But, as seen in the masonry specimen,
the strength of mortar is not seen to be decreasing linearly. However, the strength of masonry doesn’t
totally depend upon the strength of mortar. Other factors such as workability, water content,
components of masonry structure, reinforcements also affect the overall strength of masonry structure.
However, other parameters such as shear strength, diagonal compressive strength also governs the
strength of masonry (Meli, June 1973). But in overall, it can be concluded that these units are suitable
for construction which should be constructed with skilled manpower and design.

References
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Bain, J. A., & Highly, D. E. (1979). Regional appraisal of clay resources challenge to the clay mineralogist.
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