From virtual building to digital twin

January 5, 2021 /

Industry 4.0 - Digitalization - Awareness

The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector must pay close attention to the automobile industry or biomedicine, for example. These are leaders in the use and exploitation of technology to provide transparency, interaction, digitalization and intelligence.

We need to raise awareness about the power of data in operation and maintenance phases (Facility Management). And the company must see this transformation and digitalization as a lever to make it more competitive and productive.

What is the digital twin? Advantages and Applications

In the past Rebuild Expo we talked about how a digital twin of the building can be compared to the human body. Like an Avatar in which:

The bones would be the structure.
The muscles would be the envelope of the building.
The heart and nervous system would be the pipes.
The lung would be the climate machines... -And, the brain? The brain would be the DIGITAL TWIN of the building.

A digital twin is a virtual representation of a logistics production process or a product. So that technical departments can assimilate their design, implement changes and detect errors before they occur in real life. But also for SIMULAR: VIRTUALIZE TO SAVE._

The goal is a digital twin, but you have to start at the base:

To achieve this digital twin, we first need a virtual and digital model of the product or asset (we call it a virtual asset). And we use BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING as a method to get there.

Our experience in developing these virtual models: Although there is surely no single path to generate these virtual assets, you have to start somewhere and we use the FaroM70 scanner to collect massive data from the building in the form of a point cloud, which provides us with a reliable base from which to generate this virtual model of the building.

Subsequently, we analyze the rest of the information (plans, reports, budgets...) and, if it is consistent and reliable, we add it to the main elements of the asset: structures, machines, systems, equipment...

To give you an idea, in our last project, this stage of data collection generated more than 2TB of information that then had to be processed, sorted, filtered and analyzed in order to be able to work on it in subsequent phases in an agile way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmQDHfvH4t4

In short, we work with parameters and data that are translated into digital models that will be used to visualize the real state of the current building, its actions and renovations; It will be a reliable database for making decisions and making them sooner based on a virtual model, it will avoid unnecessary on-site visits to the factory, it will serve as a basis for training in daily processes and on health and safety for operators and workers, and ultimately, it will serve as a basis for achieving many other uses that draw on a virtual model until reaching the digital twin.

Now that brain that we are creating of the building needs to be fed with data in real time to value these virtual models. And you need data that is quality. From here, the integration begins. Everything to do.

We will talk more about the digital twin and its benefits in the following posts, but here we leave you some bibliography:

Spread the word!!!