ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Built Environ.
Sec. Earthquake Engineering
Finite element modelling of the seismic performance of bahareque walls
Provisionally accepted
Natividad Garcia Troncoso1,2*
Juan Molina-Cedeño1
Ken Francisco Tello1
Miguel Vergara-Pin1
Hilda Zambrano-Montalvan3
Dan Bompa4- 1Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL, Facultad de Ingeniería en Ciencias de la Tierra FICT, Guayaquil, Ecuador, Guayaquil, Ecuador
- 2Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Nanotecnología, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL, Campus Gustavo Galindo, Km. 30.5 Vía Perimetral, Guayaquil, 090902, Ecuador, Guayaquil, Ecuador
- 3Escuela de Ingeniería Civil, Universidad Espíritu Santo (UEES), Samborondón P.O. Box 09-01-952, Ecuador, Samborondon, Ecuador
- 4University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This study presents a numerical representation of the cyclic behavior and energy dissipation characteristics of cemented bahareque walls using the non-linear modeling procedures. A numerical model was calibrated through experimental tests to fit the nonlinear response, including the stiffness degradation and hysteretic behavior of bahareque walls subjected to reversed cyclic loading. An additional sensitivity analysis was carried out to evaluate the influence of aspect ratio, fastener spacing, frame cross-section, mortar panel thickness, and vertical load on the structural response of the cemented bahareque walls. Results indicate that the calibrated model successfully replicates the energy dissipation capacity of the experimental walls with a relative energy error of 4.84%, despite some localized discrepancies in force predictions. The sensitivity analysis indicated significant variation in hysteretic response associated with fastener spacing, stiffness degradation parameters, and pinching effects. This study also shows that variations in parameters as fastener spacing can affect the model's lateral loading capacity by up to 23.40%, underscoring its influence in the wall structural behavior. The findings demonstrate the suitability of the calibrated numerical model for predicting global seismic demands and highlight critical parameters that influence the cyclic performance and resilience of bahareque walls for affordable housing.
Keywords: Bahareque wall, energy dissipation, Hysteretic model, OpenSEES, Parameter assessment
Received: 14 Oct 2025; Accepted: 12 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Garcia Troncoso, Molina-Cedeño, Tello, Vergara-Pin, Zambrano-Montalvan and Bompa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Natividad Garcia Troncoso
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.