09-14-2023, 07:14 PM
Due to ADD and autism, I tend to be "free thinker" and I spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel. This is mostly a negative.
With regards to this picture and variations like it (looking at you, slip-form stone masonry) I think that the strength comes from the steel reinforced concrete. The rocks are decorative and because of their mass they make it that more steel and concrete is required so the wall is strong enough to not fall down in an earthquake. Furthermore the kind of stone masonry that does best in an earthquake is ashlar masonry where the stones are cut so they have horizontal surfaces that overlap. Such stones do not try to wedge between the stones in the lower courses as gravity pulls them down, and the tensile strength of the stone comes into play. If you had a good foundation and were careful you could stack concrete blocks really high but you could not do so with bowling balls. The stones in the picture remind me of bowling balls.
I could be wrong but I think in many cases where a stone wall is combined with reinforced concrete, adding the stone results in more concrete being used not less and makes the wall more susceptible to earthquake damage. The wonderful examples from the past seem to be due to workmanship so good that the stones, when displaced, would just as soon fall back into place as fall apart.
I think that remarkable things were done in the past and could theoretically be done again. One variation of the masonry of the past is called Cyclopean masonry. The term comes from the belief of classical Greeks that only the mythical Cyclopes had the strength to move the enormous boulders that made up the walls of Mycenae and Tiryns. So if the building department balks at the idea of building with unreinforced lava rock just tell them "No worries. We know a guy".
With regards to this picture and variations like it (looking at you, slip-form stone masonry) I think that the strength comes from the steel reinforced concrete. The rocks are decorative and because of their mass they make it that more steel and concrete is required so the wall is strong enough to not fall down in an earthquake. Furthermore the kind of stone masonry that does best in an earthquake is ashlar masonry where the stones are cut so they have horizontal surfaces that overlap. Such stones do not try to wedge between the stones in the lower courses as gravity pulls them down, and the tensile strength of the stone comes into play. If you had a good foundation and were careful you could stack concrete blocks really high but you could not do so with bowling balls. The stones in the picture remind me of bowling balls.
I could be wrong but I think in many cases where a stone wall is combined with reinforced concrete, adding the stone results in more concrete being used not less and makes the wall more susceptible to earthquake damage. The wonderful examples from the past seem to be due to workmanship so good that the stones, when displaced, would just as soon fall back into place as fall apart.
I think that remarkable things were done in the past and could theoretically be done again. One variation of the masonry of the past is called Cyclopean masonry. The term comes from the belief of classical Greeks that only the mythical Cyclopes had the strength to move the enormous boulders that made up the walls of Mycenae and Tiryns. So if the building department balks at the idea of building with unreinforced lava rock just tell them "No worries. We know a guy".