TWIN - Digital twins for sustainable buildings

Motivation and research question

Digitalization, which is increasingly being used in the construction industry, is a key method for achieving important objectives of the "European Green Deal". This includes, for example, Building Information Modeling (BIM), i.e. the combination of 3D models with comprehensive information on entities located in buildings and building-specific processes. While BIM is already commonly used in the context of design, planning, execution and facility management, the combination of such models with further real-time data and simulations, i.e. the realization of digital twins, still holds considerable potential for optimizing existing processes in the different life cycle phases of a building. Due to the complex structures of construction projects and the heterogeneous stakeholder landscape, digital twins are not yet commonly used in construction practice, despite the potential advantages. It is therefore necessary to develop measures and strategies and to demonstrate best practices that will lead to greater use of this promising approach.

Initial situation/status quo

While digital twins have already been successfully applied in many industrial sectors, applications in the construction and real estate industries have so far primarily been investigated in research and demonstration projects. Applications range from energy management at the level of single buildings or districts to the optimization of construction site logistics and increasing the quality of use and operation of buildings using model-based services. This underlines the great potential of digital twins in the construction and real estate industries. Despite this potential, digital twins have hardly been used in practice so far. This is due to technological challenges but also to the specific and often challenging environment in the construction and real estate industries. Moreover, creating and maintaining a digital twin is resource intensive, which often leads to an unfavourable outcome in the trade-off between effort and benefit.

Project contents and objectives

The overarching objective of this project was to prepare use cases of digital building twins that have a high potential for overcoming current challenges and obstacles and which can be demonstrated as best practices in follow-up projects. The following specific project objectives were pursued: systematization, evaluation, prioritization and bundling of use cases of digital building twins; identifying research, development and demonstration needs (RD&D needs) and creating a roadmap for the implementation of RD&D measures; preparation of follow-up activities.

Methodical procedure

In this project, use cases for digital building twins were evaluated by characterizing their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks (SWOT analysis), involving industry stakeholders. The aim was to identify ecologically and economically promising application scenarios. In order to ensure the consistency of the twin across life cycle phases, attention was paid to implementation options based on open systems and standards (e.g. IFC). Coherent use cases were bundled into use case chains, which are to be examined and demonstrated in a follow-up project. By means of a gap analysis, existing research gaps were identified to define the FE&D needs for further development and demonstration of the use case chains. In addition, overarching research and demonstration priorities were derived and summarized in a roadmap for further RD&D activities for digital twins.

Results and conclusions

A systematized compilation of use cases for digital building twins was created, on the basis of which use case chains were developed. The analysis of existing use cases has revealed that the lack of consistent usability of digital building models across the different project phases was a major obstacle and therefore a problem that needed to be solved. This led to the idea and development of the use case chain concept and the development of five specific use case chains in this project. Use case chains are a new approach that aims to create bundles of prioritized use cases that build on each other and affect several stakeholders in different life cycle phases. By prioritizing such chains in a construction project, a high level of benefit is created for different project participants along the project phases and value chain. Due to the synergetic use of the digital twin, an optimized trade-off between effort and benefit is achieved. When developing the use case chains, the main focus was on evaluating their feasibility and the expected benefits by involving stakeholders. The received stakeholder feedback has shown that the developed use case chains have a high technological and economic potential and that their development and demonstration in a follow-up project is plausible, feasible and expedient. In addition to the specific RD&D measures for the use case chains, the overarching research, development and demonstration needs for further development and practical establishment of digital building twins were summarized in a roadmap.

Outlook

The developed roadmap is a tool for future orientation and design of research and innovation activities in the field of digital building twins, both for funding bodies in terms of program design and for innovative companies and research institutions. The aim is to implement the RD&D measures identified in the roadmap in further research and demonstration projects. The roadmap includes specific recommendations for action. Measures could, for example, be implemented in lead projects, which in turn could be the starting point for real-world laboratories. The aim is to work on the innovation goals set out in the roadmap in representative construction and real estate projects and to develop and demonstrate multipliable and scalable solutions.

Project management

Univ. Prof. DI Dr. Michael Monsberger, Graz University of Technology - Institute of Building Physics, Services, and Construction

Project or cooperation partners

• AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH
• buildingSMART Austria
• Pro2Future GmbH
• Siemens AG Österreich

Graz University of Technology
Institute of Building Physics, Services, and Construction
Univ. Prof. DI Dr. Michael Monsberger
Lessingstrasse 25/III
A-8010 Graz
Tel.: +43 (316) 873 6255
E-Mail: michael.monsberger@tugraz.at
Web: www.ibpsc.tugraz.at