Abstract:
The collapse of stone masonry is one of the greatest causes of death in major
earthquake events around the world. This paper investigates a recently developed retrofitting
technology specifically aimed at preventing or prolonging the collapse of stone masonry
buildings under strong earthquakes. This technology uses common polypropylene packaging
straps to form amesh, which is then used to prevent or prolong collapse. This paper examines
the findings from static and dynamic testing of the proposed retrofit. It is shown that the
proposed technique effectively prevents brittle masonry collapse and the loss of debris
