Dry Stone retaining walls, DSRW, are low-cost traditional structures made of stones aimed to stabilize, support backfill and avoid soil erosion. They have massively been used as foundation of dwellings by vulnerable population located in the steeped hills surrounding some Latin-American cities. These walls are built following ancient techniques that are neither well studied nor formally established. Millions of people live in these conditions in seismic zones generating a high-risk situation. Experimental and numerical studies are needed in order to evaluate the reliability of low-cost DSRW and to validate or improve traditional techniques. The objective of this ongoing research is to design and construct a full-scale testing equipment to assess DSRW performance against lateral out-of-plane seismic forces. The methodology consists in the following steps: (1) Review of state-of-art of exp...

Dry Stone retaining walls, DSRW, are low-cost traditional structures made of stones aimed to stabilize, support backfill and avoid soil erosion. They have massively been used as foundation of dwellings by vulnerable population located in the steeped hills surrounding some Latin-American cities. These walls are built following ancient techniques that are neither well studied nor formally established. Millions of people live in these conditions in seismic zones generating a high-risk situation. Experimental and numerical studies are needed in order to evaluate the reliability of low-cost DSRW and to validate or improve traditional techniques. The objective of this ongoing research is to design and construct a full-scale testing equipment to assess DSRW performance against lateral out-of-plane seismic forces. The methodology consists in the following steps: (1) Review of state-of-art of exp...