Dynamics of rock blocks in traditional construction

Rock is one of the basic construction materials and Indian traditional construction relied on this material profusely as seen in many of the constructions beginning with the simple load bearing frame to gorgeous structures in Mahabalipuram, South India. The many advantageous features of rock like weathering, eco-friendliness and zero maintenance are the attractions of earlier designers and builders to take to this material easily. At the same time the inherent weakness in tension and bending and difficulties in quarrying them have all been taken care of by innovations in the design, shape and jointing of the system developed using rock blocks. Further the dynamic behaviour of these rock masses assembled in different ways as used in many traditional construction is a feature that needs analytical interpretation to assess how these constructions withstood centuries of environmental changes. Hence it is the focus of the current study to ascertain the properties both through analytical finite element method and experimental means so that insight into their behaviour under dynamics can be obtained. For this purpose rock blocks are assembled both with traditional and conventional mortar and tested analytically. From the results it is clear that rock blocks serve as good construction material and their vulnerability in terms of mass and weakness in tension can be easily overcome by proper design and jointing with suitable materials to provide relief for resisting lateral loads.