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Frontiers of Engineering Reports on Leading-Edge Engineering from the 2019 Symposium (2020) / Chapter Skim
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The Digital Twin Concept - Pamela A. Kobryn
Pages 17-22

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From page 17...
... Advanced computing, information system, network, and device technologies are being joined with advanced analytical methods to unlock new digital twin applications that bring value to enterprises, communities, and individuals across a broad spectrum of uses -- in transportation and logistics, mining and construction, manufacturing and production, power generation and distribution, communication and computing networks, and medicine. MOTIVATING FACTORS AND SIGNIFICANCE An early motivation for the digital twin concept was the structural health management of military aircraft, which led to investment in Airframe ­ igital Twin D (ADT)
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From page 18...
... Several aspects of US Air Force aviation led the AFRL engineers to use the term "digital twin" for their new concept. The facts that every flight of each Air Force airplane is unique and that the types of missions for which the aircraft are used change periodically led to the idea of using flight simulation to predict airplane performance over time.
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From page 19...
... Such cracking is very difficult to predict because it is driven by factors that are challenging or impossible to know a priori. Current engineering methods for forecasting fatigue cracking employ various safety factors that are uniformly applied to an entire fleet for the duration of its service life.
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From page 20...
... 20 FIGURE 1  Schema of digital twin components for aircraft lifecycle management.
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From page 21...
... One exciting recent example comes from the US Food and Drug Administration's Office of Science and Engineering Laboratories (FDA 2019) , which solicited information on "the capability to perform whole human heart computations with a medically implanted device" and "to create ‘virtual patients' and a ‘virtual population' such that the FDA can conduct an in silico clinical trial with data that can be used to support a proposal for a real clinical trial." While this project doesn't use the term digital twin, many similarities exist, including decision support, tailor­ ng for the i individual, uncertainty quantification, and statistical model updating.
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From page 22...
... 2011. Reengineering aircraft structural life prediction using a digital twin.
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Key Terms

  • twin concept
  • fatigue cracking
  • engineering performance
  • airframe digital
  • physical twin

  • twin applications
  • twin simulations
  • airframe structures
  • force base
  • adt aims

  • physical configuration
  • using flight
  • adt program
  • human heart
  • clinical trial

  • safety factors
  • design updates
  • afrl engineers
  • twin using
  • term digital

  • challenges digital
  • igital twin
  • twin simulation
  • physical aircraft
  • digital twins

  • twin simulates
  • simulation framework
  • behavior based
  • concept using
  • systematic differences


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