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According to Cai et al. (2018) confined masonry construction has been practiced in China before the 1966 XingTai earthquake (M 6.8).  Confined masonry construction was exposed to the 1976 Tangshan earthquake (M 8.2) which killed more than 250,000 people and is considered to be one of the deadliest earthquakes of the 20th century. Around 85% of all residential buildings in the affected area were of brick masonry construction (Yang and Jian,1988). Confined masonry has been also practiced in the area affected by the 2008 Wenchuan, China earthquake since the 1980s and the performance of these buildings in the earthquake has been documented (Zhao, Taucer, and Rosetto, 2009).

Earthquake Performance
Confined masonry buildings performed well when tie-columns were provided at uniform spacing and were continuous up the building height.

Guidelines, Standards, and Codes

• Click here to see more about China codes and standards 

Publications

• Functions of Tied Concrete Columns in Brick Walls, Yang, W., and Jian, Z. (1988), Proceedings of the Ninth World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Tokyo, Japan, Vol.6, pp.139­144.
• Field investigation on the performance of building structures during the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China, Zhao, B., Taucer,F., and Rossetto,T. (2009), Engineering Structures, 31: 1701-1723.
• Simplified Density Indexes of Walls and Tie-Columns for Confined Masonry Buildings in Seismic Zones, Cai, G., Su, Q., Tsavdaridis, K.D., and Degée, H., Journal of Earthquake Engineering, 2018, DOI: 10.1080/13632469.2018.1453396