Design, Construction, Operation and Maintenance using Digital Twins

The ASHVIN project, H2020 funded by the EU, aimed to contribute to the digital transformation of the European construction sector through the development of an open-source digital twin platform. By integrating IoT and image technologies, the project worked towards defining a European digital twin standard, facilitating improvements in productivity, cost management, and workplace safety.

The Laboratory contributed to this project in various topics.

Bridge Maintenance

Digital twins act as a unifying layer, integrating data collection, geometry, and simulations. When organized with similar requirements of bridge management systems, they empower maintenance protocols by enhancing coordination, decision-making, and overall performance.

The lab had access to several load tests of bridges in Extremadura, Spain, one of demos of the project with varios academic results.

Building Construction

In demo 6, a building construction project in Barcelona, we actively participated by employing digital twins with open BIM standards (IFC) to unify data, geometry, and simulations, supporting manifold stakeholders across varied processes.

The site provided a test bed for experimentation on different information pipelines.

Data Collection

The AEC sector deals with virtually infinite types of data collection techniques. One research question the laboratory set at the beginning of the project was related to the requirements and challenges for integrating well-established data collection techniques in Digital Twins. Presently, Condition or SH Monitoring are already transforming their target information recipients for the sake of twinning information accordingly.

Data Integration

Given the variety of stakeholders and distributed sites, data integration was essential for seamless collaboration. The laboratory contributed with ideas and theoretical perspectives of data integration. Knowledge Graphs were identified as enablers of disparate data integration.