Use cases of a digital twin bridge in operation

The digital twin bridge makes an important contribution on the way to predictive life cycle management. The potentials are many, especially in the life cycle phase “operation.” There, the digital twin bridge can serve as an efficient tool in terms of analyses, predictions, control, and monitoring. The goal is optimized maintenance, the importance of which continues to grow in view of the current challenges for civil engineering structures. It is therefore particularly important that relevant stakeholders with their needs and requirements are involved in the conception of the digital twin bridge at an early stage. This approach is being pursued by the German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) in various research projects that already cover partial aspects of the digital twin and is also being continued in an ongoing project to develop an overall concept for the digital twin bridge. Possible use cases were collected and assigned to the topics of “operational processes,” “maintenance planning and implementation,” and “strategic life cycle management.” In a workshop, the use cases were discussed and initially ranked by and with stakeholders. The results form an important basis for the elaboration of the modular overall concept of the digital twin bridge and the way into practice.