Research on seismic performance of typical rammed earth houses is important for disaster prevention and mitigation in Wudu

Gansu province.Four experimental walls are built using local material and local construction technology.The shearing strength of raw soil wall and the wall reinforced by iron mesh are investegated by pseudo-static test

the results show

（1） the horizontal crack load and ultimate load of reinforced walls increases by 73% and 38% than those of raw soil walls under the overlying load of 10kN

and those are 76% and 5% under the overlying load 18kN;（2） the crack load and ultimate load of raw soil wall increases by 217% and 359% with the overlying load increases from 10kN to 18kN

while the growth rates are 223% and 249% separately for reinforced wall;（3） the rammed earth wall always destroys along the horizontal and vertical cracks between layers

and eventually breaks into blocks under ho-rizontal cyclic loading.