Failure of masonry structures in earthquake: A few simple cost effective techniques as possible solutions

•Seismic resistances of various types of unreinforced masonry buildings are discussed.•Different methods of retrofitting of unreinforced masonry structures are presented.•Comparison of different methods from the view point of economy, sustainability and buildability yields a useful insight.•The review brings out the strength and weakness of various methodologies.•Mesh retrofitting method seems to be one of the effective techniques.

Masonry structures have exhibited their extreme vulnerability even in the event of past minor to moderate earthquakes. Junction failure followed by out-of-plane collapse of the wall orthogonal to the direction of strong shaking is the reason of failure of small masonry building structures as shown in a recent literature. In this context, present study makes an attempt to examine the efficacy of a few strengthening techniques of such structures verified through testing a large number of small scale models on shake table. Techniques being cost effective and easy to implement may prove useful in improving seismic performance. Large number of experimental results presented in this study may help in choosing one of the suitable techniques depending on specialties of a particular local condition.