The infrastructure construction market is facing numerous challenges: aging infrastructure, population growth, climate change, new burdens on the electrical grid, an aging workforce, and increased complexity of projects, just to name a few. This is creating a perfect storm—and a perfect opportunity for new technologies such as digital twins.
This is the conversation I had recently on The Peggy Smedley Show with Michael Campbell, chief product officer, Bentley Systems, who says the infrastructure construction market is ripe for leveraging technology like digital twins.
“There is this interesting dynamic,” he explains. “We have these professionals who have been doing things the same for a long time. We have new people coming into the workforce that sometimes it feels like they were born with a tablet in their hands. It is an interesting time.”
At its core, the digital twin is a collection of information from disparate sources. He explains that it serves to inform us and give us a holistic perspective of what is going on right now and throughout the lifecycle.
The Digital Twin at Work
In our conversation, he points to some examples of opportunities that exist such as incorporating embedded carbon calculation in the infrastructure digital twin. He also shares a case study of AtkinsRéalis, which is using digital tools on the Colorado Dept. of Transportation’s Interstate 70 Floyd Hill project. Let us take a moment to explore this example a bit further.
This project aims to alleviate an interstate bottleneck to reduce travel times. Safety is a huge priority here, as the project aims to improve design speeds and increase stopping sight distance on horizontal curves. To do this, the project adds a westbound tolled express lane, an eastbound auxiliary lane, new bridges, improved interchange and frontage road access, wildlife passageways under the roadway, two air quality monitoring stations, and a reconstruction of a nearby trail. Project completion is expected in 2028.
“This is the reimaging of a section of highway,” Campbell says. “Due to the complexity of this project—you have rugged terrain, and you have a pretty long stretch of highway—communication and coordination with everybody and contextualizing and bringing all of that information together was a huge challenge, but by leveraging an infrastructure digital twin, they were able to realize fantastic savings.”
Let’s talk about how technology will help here. Digital tools are making it possible to mitigate impacts to the surrounding natural and built environment, while also creating a more cost-effective design. The numbers speak for themselves too. The technology will lead to a reduction of more than 50,000 hours worked. Additionally, it will reduce project costs by more than $7 million, according to AtkinsRéalis.
Campbell also says, “They were able to leverage the 3D infrastructure digital twin and reduce a lot of the efforts by about 60%.”
Beyond the numbers, there are also other benefits to consider here as well. For example, the technology enables improved communication and collaboration among stakeholders such as owner/operator, the engineering firm, the construction firm, and all the citizen constituents, as Campbell mentions.
Certainly, this is only one example of the digital twin at work in infrastructure construction, but the benefits of the digital twin are hard to ignore, especially considering all the challenges the infrastructure construction market is facing. The time is now to face these challenges head on—and the digital twin can help.
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