Alternative approaches to computational mechanics: Blender for the analysis of earthquake-damaged historical buildings

The Italian historical building stock largely consists of masonry structures built without seismic design criteria, making them particularly vulnerable to earthquakes. This structural fragility, combined with the significant seismic hazard of the territory, highlights the need for analysis tools designed to provide reliable assessments within reasonable timeframes. Conventional numerical methods, such as the Discrete Element Method (DEM), while highly accurate, require extensive input data, complex modeling, and significant computational resources, limiting their effectiveness in the preliminary assessment of historic buildings characterized by irregular geometries and heterogeneous materials. This study explores an alternative approach based on the use of Blender, a 3D modeling environment originally developed for graphical purposes, integrated with the Bullet Constraints Builder (BCB) engine. The ability to import point-based geometries and customize deformation behavior through scripting provides a lightweight and flexible tool for simulating structural response up to collapse. The analysis was conducted by applying the approach to the Civic Tower of Amatrice, damaged during the 2016 Central Italy earthquake sequence. Results show that Blender effectively reproduces the stiffness distribution and main deformation patterns, with significantly reduced computational times compared to traditional methods. Although it does not replace more detailed models for the analysis of complex collapse mechanisms, this methodology represents an effective intermediate tool for rapid preliminary assessments of historic structures.