The Role of Digital Twin in Structural Engineering

In the field of structural engineering, the importance of having constantly updated and processed information becomes crucial for more informed and optimized decision-making processes throughout the life cycle of structures and infrastructures. The concept of the Digital Twin plays a crucial role in ensuring a constantly updated flow of information, improving simulation and data processing. By integrating the Digital Twin into the decision-making processes of structural engineering, it is possible to monitor the conditions of the actual structure, simplifying visualization, simulation, and prediction of different scenarios. This research focuses on a detailed description of the structure and the use of the Digital Twin concept in the context of structural engineering, highlighting the main distinctions with Building Information Modeling (BIM). The properties of the Digital Twin, integrated with tools that allow managing data, contribute to anticipating potential issues and enable the design of solutions, providing ready-to-use information to ensure the continuity of performance and structural safety of the works. This research emphasizes how the data collected and processed in the Digital Twin enable fundamental actions in the decision-making system, such as predictive maintenance planning, management of monitoring systems, or the prediction of alerts in case of structural anomalies.