Digital Twinning: Creating Infrastructure Of The Future

Should one look at the climate, the environment, resources, economy, and culture must be given strong weightage and considered when deciding on the location it is a must for the designers to prioritise safety and durability, health and comfort, convenient life, resource conservation, and a livable environment? In the lifetime cost of public buildings, operation and management costs account for about 85%, and the high operation costs make the property teams feel the pressure and when it comes to green buildings it includes many aspects of living, that includes ventilation, temperature, sunlight, light source, and voice control, all of which require scientific and technological support.

Either way, a digital twin of the building built in the metaverse becomes a necessity. These technologically sound buildings are different as opposed to conventional buildings. Should one incorporate green concepts into all the aspects of construction, right from the design stage, research and development, building materials, sales, construction, operation and maintenance, they would collectively build a closed-loop construction industry chain.

According to Autodesk, “Digital twins give multi-dimensional views into how an asset is designed and how it’s performing, including occupant behavior, use patterns, space utilization, and traffic patterns. A digital twin offers a means to test "what-if" scenarios, including the impact of design changes, weather disruptions, and security events. It collects substantial data under one environment.”

The entire idea of using the digital twin technology is to ensure that the final product, in this case, the building has been thoughtfully and sustainably designed to cater to the needs of the resident and the environment concomitantly. According to Anas Bataw, director of the Centre of Excellence in Smart Construction at Herriot Watt University Dubai, “Digital twins will address a number of issues the construction industry faces, including timeliness, high labour involvement and sustainability.”

When it boils down to the integration of green construction and the intelligent building industry,

which includes high-quality development, the number of opportunities and adversities are in equal number. New ideas emerging infrastructure, new driving forces, industries, and new models, bring more market space to the construction industry and put forward higher requirements for strengthening and playing a larger role in the construction industry. Intelligent building energy saving is a new science that is part of the green energy-saving building branch, and the original professional division of labor is different.

Should one take a look at the Middle East, the Executive Vice President of Expo 2020 for Siemens, Oliver Kraft, said: “By building a digital twin of the Expo site, we will be able to aggregate, analyse, and visualise data that allows smart decision making. This will enable us to connect more than 130 buildings to drive energy efficiency, optimisation and provide a centralised building-management system that will benefit visitors and operators alike. Plus, we will pilot the first green hydrogen storage solution in the region.”

According to Bin Yang, Zhihan and Faming Wang’s findings, Green building development and construction is not only an important way to save energy and reduce emissions in cities, but it is also an unavoidable choice for implementing sustainable development.

Multiple management systems in intelligent buildings have been systematically designed based on building energy-saving design, from optimization to the control of technical measures. Sustainable Construction is driven by a combination of environment & energy conservation, wherein intelligent buildings use buildings as platforms to actively promote the progression of building platforms to green environmental protection and ecological balance. It must be noted however that the carbon dioxide emission reduction effect of green buildings varies. Green building has grown rapidly over the last decade, and the number of projects with green building evaluation marks has increased dramatically.

It has been stated that the amount of investment into construction tech has grown exponentially, with $10 billion in investment funding from 2011 through early 2017. Technologies like building information modelling (BIM) are increasingly used throughout the industry globally.

This takes us briefly to distant Ireland where when the world’s first digital twin of a hydroelectric power station came up, the team working on it acknowledged that “Our technology allows maintenance engineers to really pinpoint, using rules of science and engineering, where the issues will likely occur and we can also establish what the operational life is in terms of fatigue assessment. It also supports predictive maintenance.”

According to WeForum, Digital twins are particularly powerful when used in conjunction with “generative design”. Rather than using technology to help people design the building, the design is generated by automation software, in response to the design brief.

Kuwait International Airport has achieved the highest environmental certification, LEED certification and according to sources at ITransporte, The project aims to generate at least 10% of the energy consumed inside and reduces overall consumption by 27% compared to a reference building. At the KIA, provisions have been made for natural light to be maximised through 8,000 skylights incorporated into the roof design, and the energy consumption is optimised through efficient mechanical systems, from lighting to air conditioning. What is interesting is that this airport was made after its digital twin and has been able to achieve more than a regular airport.

“The Government of Kuwait wants to better address issues that many international airports face: high traffic, long lines, and inefficient gate assignments,” explains Mohammad Al-Mutairi, IT Operations Manager of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. “Kuwait’s Aviation sector has undergone an orbit shift and has played a vital role in the development of the economy. By implementing the latest Microsoft technology, the Kuwait International Airport will further enhance its servicing competencies and drive transformation in the industry.”

Microsoft has played a key role in enabling the Kuwait International Airport.  “DGCA is one of the impressive examples of our customers that are truly leveraging technology to transform their operations and improve the services they provide”, said Charles Nahas, General Manager, Microsoft Kuwait. “It is exciting to see how they are adopting the latest technologies and tools to drive change. In particular, the DGCA recognized the power of data as a strategic asset and leveraged  the cloud to make more powerful and intelligent decisions.  We are proud to support the Digital Transformation journey of DGCA and we stand forth to support the Government of Kuwait in such crucial efforts.”

While highlighting the pioneering work in the UAE, it was stated that “All [decisions] are undertaken in a way that meets the aspirations of the UAE government and its leadership supporting the transit of the country to the next 50 years, and enhancing its global leadership by creating an incubating environment for innovation and advanced technologies.”

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Red Sea Development Company has BIM in place and has been using sensors to capture real-time data from their developments and allow one to pull real-time information from the operations to inform future designs. The data captured by the sensors allows facility owners to measure user experience, and to understand where the user finds value. This data can further be used to refine future developments.

It has been further reported by Enterprise that, “The destination is setting new standards in sustainable development and luxury tourism, strategically positioning the Kingdom on the international eco-tourism map. TRSP has been designed to be smart, employing frictionless and invisible technology from the outset of planning stages.”

Digital twin technologies in construction can help minimise the need for constant redevelopments, changes and changes further leverages the design phase in construction. Instead of having to raze down a whole structure, flaws, challenges and limitations can be easily identified and catered to without ever having to waste resources and raw materials.

Anas Bataw is right when he says, “A digital twin not only looks like the asset, but it also behaves like the real asset.”