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    The Evolution of Digital Twins: From Concept to Practical Applications

    Many industries will encounter many problems in the process of designing products or manufacturing, and sometimes a large number of tests are required, which consumes a lot of manpower, time, and money. In the era of Industry 4.0, the competitive conditions are not only automation, information, and the integration of other technologies, the product life cycle is gradually shortened, and can even be adjusted according to market demand, which requires a lot of simulation technology, that is, digital twins. Let’s take a deep understanding of its evolution and impact today!

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    The evolution of Digital Twins

    Simulation technology such as the digital twin has actually been mature in the past, from simulating a single physical field, multi-physics field, and the whole system to drive the entire product development, and now simulating the entire product life cycle. In the past, traditional digital twins were limited, for example, they could not work on virtual and physical machines at the same time. However, digital twins have developed rapidly in the past two decades. They can not only visualize equipment but also collaboratively manage the life cycle and even optimize the entire manufacturing process which becomes the foundation to support the development of Industry 4.0.


    What exactly is the digital twin?

    As mentioned before, it is believed that many people already have the basic concept. In simple terms, this technology is to digitally simulate the design and manufacturing process and can analyze and optimize it also discover potential problems in advance, and optimize the design projects. It can not only improve the design defects in advance and can also cooperate with the process optimization to improve the yield and stability, thereby improving the competitiveness of enterprises.

    Digital Twin application in the manufacuring industry

    1.Production optimization: By simulating the entire production process, from supply chain management to manufacturing operations, digital twins can identify areas for optimization, improve production efficiency, reduce equipment downtime, and enhance product quality.


    2.Fault prediction and maintenance: Manufacturing companies can create virtual models of equipment using digital twins to monitor and predict equipment usage. This enables proactive preventive maintenance, minimizing downtime and maintenance costs.


    3.Simulation and product design optimization: Digital twins can be used to create virtual models of products, both in the research and development phase and for existing products. By simulating different designs and adjusting parameters, digital twins facilitate the optimization of product design and manufacturing processes, leading to cost reduction and improved product quality.

    The impact of digital twins on the industry

    Taking the aircraft as an example, in addition to the mechanical structure, it also contains many subsystems, and various experiments are required to navigate in any environment, and the digital twin can simulate various types of aircraft through the aircraft created in the virtual environment when designing it. The system and the conditions in various environments (icing, lightning strikes, etc.), and finally verify whether there are potential problems during the flight, and even know the aircraft failure and the parts that need to be repaired.

    Taking automobiles as an example, the design of automobiles has been reduced by half from the past 20 years to the present. Nowadays, the car body structure is more and more complicated from designing, prototyping, and testing, it takes a lot of time, manpower, and money if we use the traditional method. Therefore, the requirements can now be implemented in the virtual model during the design period.

    If problems are found, they can be corrected immediately, which greatly reduces the errors of the physical vehicle, and is also beneficial to the correction and management of the system which makes the design process simplify effectively and shortens the design time.


    Although simulation technology has existed in the past, the development of this technology has a great influence on Industry 4.0 currently, not only for optimizing various production processes and reducing costs but also for products commonly used in life. For more convenience or to improve safety and performance, the benefits brought by this technology are not limited to enterprises. For example, the aircraft and automobiles mentioned are often dominated by people, and potential problems can be identified in advance through digital twinning, therefore, it can provide a safer environment for the public.

    Front photo by openPR

    Source image: EET

    References: paas / kknews

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