Looking for Ways to Test Your Product but Afraid to Break it? Try Digital Twins!
The digital transformation endeavor is happening for many manufacturers. Industries are increasingly embracing advanced technologies to optimize their processes and improve production quality. To them, staying up-to-date with technological development means welcoming digital twins into their ranks.
A digital twin is a virtual 3D model that simplifies a product’s development. Think of it as a more sophisticated and advanced computer-aided design or CAD file. While a digital twin is a virtual environment created out of data from sensors on an actual object, the resulting model can be used to study the performance of the object, like it has been realized recently in the 3D printed bridge in central Amsterdam.
The technology is largely applied in many industrial sectors. Some oil-producing companies, like Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, use online monitoring aided by digital twin models to control its operations. The same can be said about Shell, which employs digital twins to solve many operational issues.
The virtual model can be viewed using virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) headsets with no additional effort. This stage in the metaverse development can help engineers and designers develop their projects free from any distractions and budget limitations. In addition, a digital twin makes it possible to test any possible collisions and applications that would cost a fortune to run on an actual model.
A product’s digital twin can be as complex as you require, depending on the amount of data. With enough information about the simulated object, it is possible to simulate the real-world physical version.
The technology is only limited by the amount of computing power, which may prevent the correct representation of certain parameters. But its future is immense. The global digital twin market size was $12.1 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow.
NASA’s John Vickers introduced the term for the concept in 2010. But the idea appeared in the organization in the 1960s, during the tests of a new spacecraft. The idea was to replicate a craft in an earthbound version for study and simulation purposes.
Advantages of the technology
Digital twin software can model both possible and actual events occurring during a product’s performance. Based on data from sensors, it assesses the causes and results of a certain action, thus, restoring the chain of events that led to a malfunction.
This can provide engineers and technicians with valuable insight into what has gone wrong. Also, the information obtained from real-life use cases serves to model future situations. This may help developers to account for a vast number of possibilities.
For example, if a plant’s operators have a turbine working and half capacity, they may use the digital twin software to help solve it. The software can present them two solutions: make a prediction based on relationships between components or search through the previous cases of a similar malfunction.
Another application for digital twins is research and design (R&D). It may become more effective thanks to a large amount of data gathered about likely performance outcomes. By using this information, companies may redesign or change products even before starting production.
Digital twins are another step towards the Internet of Things (IoT).
To fully implement its potential, a company should have a thorough IoT-oriented development strategy. This kind of orientation makes it possible for a large corporation to track every working piece of production, i.e., an engine. Moreover, by employing IoT and digital twins, it is possible to predict all possibilities of failure, even in future products.
The data obtained may help when it comes to recycling a product as by assessing the performance by the end of its lifecycle. Digital twins help decide what parts should be recycled and what may still be used elsewhere.
Types and applications of digital twins
The fact that the technology is operated via virtual reality makes it possible to develop all types of digital twins. Generally, they start as a model of a part, allowing engineers to design any particular piece of machinery and observe its performance. Also, receiving information on conditions when something underperforms or doesn’t perform is very important.
With a single component, everything is fine and dandy, and there is nothing that can’t be done with a regular CAD file. But when components start to work together, things get difficult. Digital twins can cover this as they let you study the interaction between components, creating an abundance of performance data that can be processed. The same can be applied to the whole system of production.
But on the macro-level of magnification, digital twins can reveal how production facilities work. This helps to account for logistics, synchronize time limits and schedules, and determine how delays can affect the work of the whole system.
The technology offers a lot of opportunities for manufacturers, but not every enterprise needs it. It is quite costly to arrange a set of sensors to properly create a digital twin. But industries with physically large constructions or mechanically complex projects can get a 100% output from it.
All CAD-dependent industries may benefit greatly from the digital twins. Those are engineering projects, automobile manufacturers, aircraft producers, builders, and so on.
Digital twins and CAD files
Digital twins are the key to efficiency in heavy industry and complex systems development. A digital twin is a CAD-based model with the latest sensor data associated with it. As we stated before, creating a digital twin costs a lot in terms of equipment and computing power. The latter is especially crucial when there is a need to transfer CAD information like mass and density.
Same as CAD files, digital twins require high levels of protection in terms of IP and copyright preservation. In many cases, there may be a problem defining how much data can be used to create a digital twin and not cross the line of copyright infringement. Sometimes it is enough to include the digital twin within the contract of permitted use, but this may be different from case to case.
We at CADChain have also employed this technology in our solution. At least, to some degree. Our Autodesk Inventor plugin BORIS uses geometric twins to safeguard your files. This technology is still our little secret, but we are ready to share it with you to some extent. The idea is to protect not just a CAD file of your product but to extend your rights on every piece.
We analyze the geometry of a CAD model and create a geometric twin of this CAD file so our state-of-the-art IP protection is securely embedded into the file. This unique mixture of geometry and cryptography makes it possible to properly evaluate and license parts of your design. Moreover, changing the file format does not invalidate the ID, which is another unique feature of the geometric twin approach.
We protect the geometry of a 3D model. Thus, it will be impossible to slightly change a piece of your design and claim that it is brand new.
Another key feature is that we use the geometric twins to assign it to a blockchain and safely transfer it to a manufacturer. Meanwhile, your file with a master key to it is secured within the storage of your choosing.
The design world is changing dramatically
A huge change to how design works is underway. The future of digital twins is nearly limitless as production technologies require solutions that would help develop and safely test new assets.
The application range for digital twins expands even faster, involving spheres such as city planning, logistics, healthcare, and manufacturing. A modern company needs to stay tuned and adapt to changes to be able to keep IP ownership, thus keeping a competitive advantage. And we are here to help.
