As the notion of data-driven analytics and turning data into action is becoming more salient in the construction industry, researchers and practitioners have recently devoted considerable effort to investigate the digital transformation of the industry. Along this journey, Digital Twin has been introduced to the industry as a concept that holds the promise to challenge the status-quo and address long standing problems of productivity, efficiency, and value. While this concept is becoming more familiar among practitioners, there is a lack of universal definitions of what the Digital Twin of a construction project is. Additionally, while identifying the purpose of Digital Twin is recognized as the first step in implementing Digital Twins, there is little discussion on the perception of construction practitioners of the extent to which Digital Twin can deliver value. To address these research gaps and building on the existing work on Digital Twins in the context of the construction industry, this paper first proposes a definition of the Digital Twin of a construction project. Next, a series of semi-structured interviews are conducted with nine construction practitioners to understand their perceptions on the use and challenges of Digital Twins. Thematic analysis is then used to analyze interview data and summarize Digital Twins applications, capabilities, and challenges. Forty direct applications were identified and grouped into seven capabilities. Digital Twins capabilities of Increase Transparency of Information and Real-Time Monitoring, Analysis, and Feedback were the most discussed with a total of eight applications each, followed by Better Stakeholder Collaboration which had seven applications. The discussion on challenges led to the identification of 34 challenges to implementing Digital Twin, grouped into six categories coded through thematic analysis. The category on Data Understanding, Preparation, and Usage Challenges was found to be the most critical for the interviewees. Additionally, the paper presents a case study on how building authority can be integrated into Digital Twins and leverage its use throughout the lifecycle of a building. Future work can further investigate the challenges and develop prototypes that can help in quantifying the benefits of implementing Digital Twins on a Construction Project.
The advent and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the world’s focus toward investing in social structure projects that would improve urbanization and enhance equity. This shift compiled with the emergence of innovative technologies namely Digital Twins, allowed for investigating new approaches for designing and delivering infrastructures, thus paving the road toward smarter infrastructures. Smart infrastructures achieved by connecting the physical aspect of the infrastructure with its digital aspect will allow for optimizing the performance of infrastructure systems by digitally enhancing the asset value and leveraging the value of asset data. Digital Twins can be applied to several civil infrastructure projects including the transportation sector. Also, Digital Twins can be implemented for different spatial scales, on a national level, on the level of the city, and for a network of assets. Few case studies described how to transfer a Digital Twin vision to practice; thus, this chapter presents the journey for a holistic Digital Twin for a highway system formed of a network of assets by discussing the Why, How, and What framework. A holistic highway Digital Twin will allow for cross-asset data analysis, conducting predictive and preventive maintenance, and efficient resource allocation based on data-driven decision-making.
Abstract. Transportation Asset Management (TAM) is a data-driven decision-making process to maintain and extend the serviceability of transportation assets throughout their lifecycle. TAM is an extensive data process that requires accurate and high-quality information for better decision-making. A significant challenge faced by state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) is the need to allocate their limited funds to optimize their assets’ performance. The criticality of this challenge increases when state DOTs need to manage a wide variety of assets distributed along with a vast network. To address this challenge, a new paradigm of digitizing the management of the built environment is emerging and is perceived to highly depend on the integration of several technologies namely on Digital Twins. Digital Twins, by definition, are the connection between the physical and the digital aspects of an asset, thus, aligning with the overarching objective of asset management of leveraging the use of the asset information (i.e., digital aspect of the asset) to improve the asset’s performance throughout its lifecycle (i.e., physical aspect of the asset). At the core of implementing Digital Twins is having the right data collected for use throughout the lifecycle of the asset. Thus, realizing the potentials of Digital Twins in supporting state DOTs to manage their transportation assets and the anticipated benefits, this paper investigated the current practices of state DOTs in digitizing the Data Collection for Roadside Asset Systems by developing and distributing a web-based survey. Five major Data Collection variables and seven Roadside Asset Systems were considered. Furthermore, this paper presents a case study from a leading DOT in digitizing the management of the built environment to further understand the requirements of implementing Digital Twins to support transportation asset data management.
To survive in an increasingly complex environment, the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry needs a game-changing innovation. As, the industrial sector has provided compelling evidence that Industry 4.0 gives the opportunity to gain competitive advantages, the construction industry started embracing what is now acknowledged as Construction 4.0. While Building Information modeling (BIM) has been extensively discussed and is perceived as a core enabler of Construction 4.0, this next revolution in the AEC industry goes beyond BIM. As Construction 4.0 is gaining momentum in the construction body of knowledge, there is still no consensus on what Construction 4.0 really means and what technologies it encompasses. Building on insights collected from the extant research corpus through a systematic literature review of the published scientific research in the last ten years, this paper proposes a blueprint for Construction 4.0. Bibliometric analysis was employed to map the currently discussed Construction 4.0 technologies, group them into clusters based on their occurrences, and determine the least researched ones. This blueprint sheds light on how well-defined the concept of Construction 4.0 is, detects the least researched technologies, and provides AEC stakeholders with a reference to better understand this transformation and where it stands today.
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