Development of the Digital Twin of a Historical Structure for SHM Purposes

Since the early civil Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applications, the need for effective tools to characterize the structural response under varying environmental conditions has been recognized as a critical factor for SHM reliability. As a consequence, the current structural condition as well as relevant historical data have to be taken into account to have an up-to-date representation of the actual physical system in operation. Digital twins can play a primary role in the evaluation of the current condition of the structure and in anomaly detection to support structural maintenance. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is currently showing a potential in this perspective thanks to the possibility of collecting miscellaneous data and information in a unified platform; however, its extension to facility management is an open issue, in particular when the digital models have to be complemented with data coming from SHM systems. So, an effective integration between the two is highly desirable. The present paper aims at demonstrating how relevant information coming from SHM systems can be integrated into a BIM model of a structure to make them available for interrogation and further analyses. The development of a digital twin of a historical structure combining SHM data, BIM, and finite element model updating is illustrated pointing out its promising applicative perspectives for structural maintenance.