Seismic testing of 3d printed miniature masonry in a geotechnical centrifuge
Earthquakes are responsible for more than half of the human losses due to natural disasters. Masonry structures have been proven the most vulnerable both in the developing and in the developed world. Even though Masonry is one of the oldest building materials, our understanding of its behavior at the level of the structure (system level) is limited. Therefore, there is a need for extended shake table testing. But shake table tests are expensive and full-scale system-level testing of large buildings is only possible in a handful of shake tables in the globe – and at a huge cost.

We propose to take advantage of research developments in 3D printing and develop a method to perform system-level testing at a small scale using 3D printers and a geotechnical centrifuge (to preserve similitude). The key is to print materials with behavior controllable and similar to masonry. MiniMasonry testing proposes to control the properties of masonry via controlling the geometry of a 3D printed “meta”-mortar. The method will be developed via typical static masonry tests performed on the 3D printed parts. It will be further validated via comparing shaking table tests (in a centrifuge) of miniature structures to existing results of full-scale tests. The cost of the dynamic tests is expected to be so low, that multiple tests can be performed, so that existing numerical methods can be validated in the statistical sense. As a case study, the method will be applied to explore the behavior of a low-cost seismic isolation method that has been proposed for masonry structures in developing countries.

With the rapid evolution of 3D printing, it will be possible to scale-up the methods developed in MiniMasonryTesting, so that other Civil Engineering materials can be tested faster and cheaper than now. This is a game changer in structural testing, as it will enable researchers to test structures that up to now it was impossible or very expensive to test at a system level.