Creating a finite element mesh of non-periodic masonry from the measurement of its geometrical characteristics: A novel automated procedure

This paper presents an automated procedure that enables the creation of a finite element mesh directly from an image file representing a rasterised sketch of a masonry element. When used to create a 2D mesh with planar and rectangular elements, the procedure is called 'pixel strategy', and the creation of a 3D mesh with elements of solid brick is called 'voxel strategy'. The homogenised in-plane and out-of-plane failure surfaces of historical masonry cells that display a non-periodic arrangement of units can be extracted from the obtained finite element meshes. In our tests, these surfaces were consistent with the expected results, and their shapes suggest that the behavior of this type of masonry may range between orthotropic (if bed mortar joints are clearly noticeable) and quasi-isotropic (if some units spread over two or more masonry layers).