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There are about 65,000 bridge structures in the infrastructure network of the Federal Republic of Germany. Due to the long operating phase of bridges, they have an influence on sustainability. To evaluate the sustainability of bridges in the operational phase, digital building models can serve as a consistent and structured database to increase the efficiency and transparency. In this article, an innovative evaluation system for measuring and assessing the sustainability of a bridge structure in the operational phase based on a digital bridge twin is developed. First, the workflow is presented in a process model and the necessary requirements for the digital twin of the bridge structure are defined. In addition, the semi‐automatic sustainability assessment system is described and the linkage via an interoperable interface to the digital twin is designed. The approach is tested and validated using a real demonstrator. The result of the paper shows an approach to use digital twins for a novel and semi‐automatic sustainability assessment in the operation of bridge structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nibelungen bridge as a pilot project for digitally assisted structural maintenance The construction industry is one of the main consumers of natural resources and contributes significantly to CO2 emissions in Germany with an annual waste volume of 54 %. Therefore, the preservation of existing buildings can make a significant contribution to environmental protection and resource conservation. However, effective monitoring and maintenance concepts are needed to extend the service life of structures while maintaining their stability and functionality. This paper deals with a pilot project in which the Nibelungen Bridge Worms serves as a validation object to develop a new, digitally supported maintenance strategy. First, the bridge and its maintenance history will be presented. Subsequently, the pilot project is put into the context of the DFG priority programme SPP 2388 "Hundert plus". Afterwards, the specific key aspects including geometric modelling, structural health monitoring (SHM), digital twinning, level 4 recalculation and the assessment of detected structural damages are described. Finally, conclusions and outlooks are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Including disabled workers in value-creating work processes is a fundamental and guaranteed human right and is, therefore, an essential goal of society. In Germany, sheltered workshops create the conditions for this inclusion since they are essential to companies' value chains. A central challenge is the inclusion of disabled workers in the value-creation processes, such as in manufacturing or assembly areas. The skills of disabled workers vary since they have individual impairments. Therefore, this paper presents a digital human model, a Human Digital Twin (HDT), for disabled workers. The model maps their skills and supports the production planning and assembly processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of novel energy vehicles, power generation, photovoltaics, and other industries, power electronic devices have gained considerable attention. Insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) have been widely used in those fields. With the emergence of intelligent manufacturing concepts such as Germany's "Industry 4.0" and China's "Made in China 2025", conventional manufacturing which needs to be upgraded with higher efficiency and yield is rapidly pivoting toward digitalization and intelligence. The digital twin methodology has been extensively used in various industries for constructing virtual models of physical entities, facilitating real-time data interconnection to reduce costs and improve efficiency. This study proposes a modular intelligent IGBT production line based on the digital twin. Real-time data are transmitted from a physical line to a digital line for storage and analysis. The digital line is visualized, and an intelligent management platform containing multiple functions is developed. Additionally, a process simulation database is established to obtain the optimal process parameters. Numerous quality issues that can arise during each process of IGBT packaging are addressed using a problem-solving approach based on the digital twin methodology. Consequently, this digital-twin-based IGBT intelligent production line effectively enhances yield rates and efficiency. IGBT modules with various packaging forms such as ACF, ACE, and ACD are manufactured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the world has more urbanized, cities need to assess and manage their building energy performances in order to achieve energy-reduction goals. The urban digital twins (UDT) offer promising solutions to this demand by providing valuable insights with qualitative and quantitative information about the building environment. The urban building energy data is not only measured from the equipped sensor devices but can also be simulated based on the analysis software. In this research, we aim to explore the development of the spatial data infrastructure (SDI) for managing building energy in the UDT application by employing the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards which increases the data usability and efficiency. In our concept SDI, the big data in the UDT application is managed with the OGC specifications as follows: OGC SensorThings API (STA) for data with Spatio-temporal characteristics, OGC API 3D GeoVolumes for 3D geospatial content delivery, OGC CityGML for virtual 3D city models, OGC API Features, Web Feature Service (WFS), and Web Map Service (WMS) for other 2D geospatial contents. This concept enables broad interoperability between multiple data layers and client applications. As a proof of concept, we developed the UDT application called with a highly visual and intuitive user interface using the proposed SDI concept as a part of the EnSysLE project in the study area of three regions in Germany: Ludwigsburg, Dithmarschen, and Ilm-Kreis. The proposed concept can be expanded to other UDT domains and on a larger scale in future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital Twins (DTs) provide a promising solution for the maintenance and operation of bridges, thanks to their ability to mirror physical/structural conditions. A bridge DT generally consists of a geometric-semantic model whose creation, however, requires extensive manual effort. This paper presents an automated framework to generate the parametric model of bridges from their segmented point clouds. Following the concept of reverse engineering with parametric modeling, Parametric Prototype Models (PPMs) are proposed as tools to extract parameter values from point clouds. A local and global optimization problem is defined to adjust and assemble PPMs into an integrated model. The proposed approach has been validated by applying it to the point cloud of bridge components as well as point clouds captured from six concrete bridges in Bavaria, Germany. The results show that the proposed approach can generate the parametric model of bridges with a mean absolute error (MAE) of 8.71 cm. • A reverse engineering approach is proposed for the parametric modeling of bridges. • Parametric Prototype Models (PPMs) are introduced to describe bridge point clouds. • Local and global optimization problems are defined to adjust and assemble PPMs. • Metaheuristic optimization algorithms are utilized to derive parameter values. • The method is validated with the point cloud of six bridges in Bavaria, Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring on road bridges in Germany is rare and mostly designed to deal with existing damages and deficits, as a survey of the Federal Ministry of Digital and Transport in Germany has shown in 2020. Other use cases are monitoring to support structural inspection, monitoring to monitor significant structures, or impact monitoring. The objectives, benefits and examples of the various use cases are described in the present article. Monitoring results are most useful when they are combined with other information about the structure, such as repair measures or damage development, in a common data environment. The Digital Twin is a possibility to merge the existing information und represents the highest expression of digital implementation. The Digital Shadow with an automatic data link from the physical to the digital object and the manual data link from the digital to the physical object represents a preliminary stage of the Digital Twin. The implementation of a Digital Shadow is already taking place at a demonstrator structure of the BASt. The basis for the Digital Shadow is the parametric BIM model. In a selected BIM application, the available information was compiled for this bridge and visualized in a common data environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along the long service life of the approximately 65,000 bridges in Germany of more than 50 years, it requires the execution of many meetings under the participation of many different parties. These meetings are still location‐bound and run very manually using analog inventory documentation. For an optimization, further digitization as well as dissolution of the location dependency at the structure, immersive technologies can be used in connection with digital twins of bridge structures. This article presents an approach for a location‐independent meeting at the bridge structure under the integration and possibility of interaction of all actors and linking of the digital and physical world. A digital building model of the bridge serves as the data basis and immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality as the output and interaction technology. In the first section, the status quo is elaborated based on a literature review. This is followed by the presentation of the theoretical concept. In the next step, the concept is implemented and validated by using a real bridge demonstrator. Finally, further development possibilities as well as still existing challenges are derived. The result of the article shows a concept and the first feasibility of location‐independent meetings in the maintenance management of a bridge by merging the following elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers and consultants face an unmanageable amount of diverse knowledge and information for crop management decisions. To determine optimal actions, decision makers require knowledge-based support. In this way, decisions can be improved and heuristics can be replaced over time. The study presents a digital knowledge base with an integrated decision support system (DSS), using the example of nutrient supply, specifically nitrogen (N), fertilization. Therefore, the requirements of farmers and crop consultants for DSS to inform fertilization decisions for winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) were elaborated using surveys, expert interviews, and a prototype test. Semantic knowledge was enriched by expert knowledge and combined in a web application, the Crop Portal. To map regional and personal decision making patterns and experiences, the tacit knowledge on the complex advisory problem of N fertilization is made digitally usable. For this purpose, 16 fuzzy variables were specified and formalized. Individual decision trees and their interactions with an integrative knowledge base were used to multiply the consulting reach of experts. Using three consultants and nine model farms from different soil–climate areas in Germany, the Crop Portal was tested under practical conditions and the perceived pragmatic and hedonic quality of the system was evaluated using a standardized questionnaire. The field test showed that the variation in fertilizer recommendations from the 'digital advisor twin' ranged from 5 kg N ha−1 to 16 kg N ha−1 when compared with the decisions of the experts in the field. The study presents the participatory development and evaluation of a rule-based DSS prototype in agricultural practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]