CONSTRUCTION DIGITAL TWIN: A FRAMEWORK FOR A GENERAL CONTRACTOR

Industry 4.0, as the fourth wave of the industrial revolution, offers ample benefits for various industries like manufacturing, aerospace, systems engineering, oil and gas, and construction. Digital Twin (DT), as one of the main concepts of Industry 4.0, introduces a new paradigm in the construction industry as a real-time virtual replica of a physical asset. Although many industries such as manufacturing, automotive, aviation, and healthcare are extensively using the concepts of Industry 4.0, the construction industry is lagging in terms of adopting and implementing Industry 4.0 principles and taking advantage of its benefits. To date, most of the construction industry studies have focused on the implementation of DT in operation and maintenance phases of facilities, and the use of DT in the construction phase has not been addressed sufficiently. A noticeable feature of the current monitoring technologies (e.g., range finders, laser scanning, GPS, RFID, Wi-Fi, UWB, smart sensors, etc.) used in the construction industry is that the gathered data is generally used in an isolated fashion with a single subject focus where there are very few cases of integrated use of more than one technology. There is also a lack of clarity on the potential technologies for higher levels of CDT in terms of integration with socio-technical platforms and using simulation, optimization, learning, and end-user engagement, mainly due to a lack of implementation and research at such levels of sophistication. This research is motivated to study the implementation of DT during the construction phase of projects. A construction digital twin (CDT) framework is developed to demonstrate the different tiers necessary for the implementation of the DT concept in construction. Following the development of the CDT framework, a soil management case study was implemented as an application of the proposed CDT to validate the framework and demonstrate the benefits of using digital twins during construction phase of projects. Simulation of the earthwork operations was performed as part of the CDT, and results of the simulation in evaluating various what-if scenarios for optimum resource allocation and operations management proved the benefits of using CDT in the construction phase of projects and for general contractors. With the development of a CDT framework and implementation of a case study using the proposed framework and enabling technologies, this study tries to address the existing gaps in using digital twins in the construction industry. Using the developed CDT in implementing several applications can assist general contractors in better management of their construction processes, filling the information gap between the as-designed BIM models at the design phase and the as-built BIM models at the time of project hand-over, enabling various services through real-time data acquisition, model updating, and data analytics and predictions for progress tracking, site monitoring, resource allocation, performing what-if scenarios. As a result of using a CDT in construction, several impacts such as reducing costs, improved collaboration and information exchange among various domains, data-driven construction management, real-time or near real-time status awareness of the project and its performance, and improved transparency can be anticipated.