Residential Buildings Made with Local Materials and Their Classification on the Basis of a Field Experiment

The high seismicity of the territory imposes special requirements on the construction industry of the Kyrgyz Republic; it is necessary to develop and implement a long-term and targeted state policy in order to increase the level of seismic resistance of existing and newly constructed buildings and structures. This research presents the classification of low-rise buildings from local materials and the analysis of a series of experiments on models of low-rise buildings from local materials. The local material is clay. As a local type of clay used earthenware clay. Owing to their excellent insulation properties and their heat storage capacity, clay building materials help to reduce the energy consumption of buildings. A series of experiments were carried out to analyze seismic resistance and to increase insulation properties. Their intensity can reach 8–9 balls by the MSK64 scale or even more. The Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik (MSK) scale of seismic intensity was widely used in former Soviet Union countries starting in 1964 and it is based on typical masonry structures. The last series of experiments showed that the model of a house built from local materials and reinforced with a wooden frame of the “Synch” type has the following properties: does not collapse at different weights of coatings, even with intensity 9 by MSK64 scale (in terms of acceleration) earthquakes; of all the options, the most acceptable in terms of efficiency and seismic resistance were houses with a wooden frame “Synch” filled with clay materials. Wooden-framed houses filled with clay materials are called «synch» houses. The Synch is a timber frame structure filled up with earthenware clay.