This work deals with the particle-based modelling of cortical wire meshes. Such meshes are being used in many engineering applications but their modelling is particularly complex because of the common large displacement serviceability conditions, the chance of localized failures, and the intrinsic geometrical and mechanical anisotropies. The discrete element method has proved to be an excellent numerical tool for the investigation of such structures. Here, two modelling strategies are compared using a wire-node description and a wire-cylinder description: in the first the wire mesh is described by a collection of spheres at nodes linked by long-range interaction forces, in the second the wires are represented by means of interconnected cylinders. The force-displacement constitutive model of the interactions is calibrated based on specific tensile tests. The comparison is performed on results of tensile tests and punch tests on a reference mesh panel
