is a Ph.D. candidate at The Ohio State University. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from The Ohio State University. He has also worked as a construction inspector for the City of Columbus. Jin is currently working toward a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with a focus in virtual reality on ancient structures.

The Jinshanling section of the Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications in northern China that was constructed for strategic military defenses. This section was first built in the beginning of the Ming Dynasty in AD 1368 and then underwent major construction, reconstruction and renovation during the late Ming Dynasty, approximately in AD 1569. The Jinshanling section is 10.5 km long, a very short section compared with the entire 21,200 km wall. The wall section is located in Luanping County, Hebei province, China. This research paper focuses on the construction methods and materials of the wall and the towers in the area. The research methodology includes site visits, knowledge acquisition of experts and 3D graphic modeling. This study reveals that the materials selected for the structure include rubbles and rammed earth, bricks, stones, timber, and mortar. The erection sequence of the wall and the towers was a bottom-up fashion using various ancient construction techniques, such as the fire-setting rock blasting techniques and the surveying techniques from the Sea Island Mathematical Manual.

This research study focuses on the Jinshanling segment of the Great Wall of China. Site investigations, data collection and non-destructive examinations of various parts of the structure have resulted in a detailed analysis of the performance of both the wall and the towers of the Jinshanling segment. A satisfactory performance can be attributed to the use of rubble-filled core and bedrock foundations, levelled stone and brickwork, and lower-density materials towards the top of the structure and large columns to support heavier loads within the towers, among other factors. Suggested causes for deterioration of the wall include design issues and construction workmanship, lack of post-construction maintenance, natural weather and other events. The overall performance of the middle Jinshanling section of the Great Wall is satisfactory, but renovations are needed in both the eastern and western Jinshanling sections to prevent further damage.

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Fabian Hadipriono Tan has worked in the areas of construction of infrastructures and buildings, failure assessment of buildings and bridges, construction accident investigations, forensic engineering, ancient buildings, ancient bridges, and the ancient history of science and engineering for over 40 years. The tools he uses include fault tree analysis, fuzzy logic, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality.