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UK-based Digital Twin Hub positioned for accelerated growth and acceptance
Digital Twins evolved from the aerospace industry, and they’re gaining traction in Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) whereby the process represents the built environment that encompasses an industrialised manufacturing process in their virtual environments.
In effect, Digital Twins are Building Information Modelling (BIM) files that can represent the entire lifecycle of a build, and that AEC professionals can collaborate on before any construction commences.
The digital twin concept consists of three distinct parts: the physical product, the digital/virtual product, and connections between the two products.
On 1 April, UK-based Digital Twin Hub transitioned from the Centre for Digital Built Britain to a new home at the Connected Places Catapult as it looks to accelerate growth and develop new projects across the public and private construction sectors
The Digital Twin Hub was launched in March 2020 as part of the National Digital Twin programme to provide a voice for the supply and demand of digital twins, foster collaboration, interoperability, adoption and innovation.
In two years based at the Centre for Digital Built Britain at the University of Cambridge, DT Hub membership grew from an initial group of six to over 3,500 individuals representing more than 1,600 organisations from over 77 countries.
The hub has become the “go to” place for those wanting find out more about connected digital twins, while demonstrating the need for a digital twin community and highlighting that collaboration, connection and knowledge exchange are vital to achieving connected digital twins across the built and natural environments.
In March, the CDBB completed its mission on the National Digital Twin programme and from 1 April, the DT Hub transitioned to an industry/Catapult partnership housed at the Connected Places Catapult (CPC), the UK’s innovation accelerator for cities, transport and places.
The move to CPC will allow the hub to accelerate its growth by drawing on the strengths at the wider Catapult Network, including the Digital Catapult, Energy Systems Catapult and High-Value Manufacturing Catapult, to support better engagement with a broad range of innovators across industry and academia, growing the hub’s scale and impact.
The DT Hub has been joined at CPC by two other programmes established by the Centre for Digital Built Britain – the International BIM programme and the Climate Resilience Demonstrator (CReDo) project.
The International BIM programme
The International BIM programme was established to develop a toolkit to drive standardisation and use of Building Information Modelling across construction sectors around the world.
It provided a set of guidance and template documents, aligned with the ISO 19650 series of standards, and comprises key components facilitating implementations of best practice information management processes for organisations at every level of BIM adoption.
The toolkit was developed with input from more than 200 contributors over a three-year period.
Climate Resilience Demonstrator (CReDo)
CReDo is a pioneering climate change adaptation digital twin project that provides a practical example of how connected data can improve climate adaptation and resilience across a system of systems.
The project looks specifically at the impact of flooding on energy, water and telecoms networks. It demonstrates how the owners and operators of these systems can use secure, resilient information sharing across sector boundaries to mitigate the effects of flooding on network performance and service delivery.
Users can explore different scenarios and it demonstrates how connecting datasets and digital twins across organisations and sectors is essential to future infrastructure resilience, as well as achieving net zero.
Alexandra Bolton, executive director of the Centre for Digital Built Britain, said: “We are thrilled that the DT Hub will continue its mission at the forefront of innovation. We celebrate its achievements and look ahead to an era that will extend cooperation, coordination and collaboration across sectors, and inspire even greater progress towards our vision of enabling people and the planet to flourish together for generations.”
Read a Built Offsite article on Sixty Martin Place, Sydney, and their use of Digital Twins HERE
See: cp.catapult.org.uk
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