b'The Digital Twin | Engineer Innovationfind out what happens if I drive a brand-new sports car through half a meter of water, I can either drown the physical asset or run many simulations on its virtual counterpart. The list of potential questions is endless:What happens to the emissions signature if I run my gas turbine on hydrogen rather than methane?; If I change the ride height of a vehicle to avoid underbody damage, how will that influence aerodynamic performance? ; How can I adapt the control systems of my subsea compressor to cope with unexpected pressure differences in the reservoir?. CAE simulation has a long history of providing the answers to difficult engineering questions. This capability will only be enhanced when fed with real-life data from the physical asset. I think its fair to say that, without a credible predictive capability, then a digital twin isnt really alive. Engineering simulation is the beating heart of the digital twin. 6. Threaded: the virtual space will comprise multiple interacting models that together predict performanceFor a digital twin to act as a fully comprehensive facsimile of its real-world counterpart, it must be able to predict and analyze a wide range of physical phenomena. This sort of cross-domain predictive capability will necessarily involve many differentnecessarily comprise of manyConclusionengineering and simulation tools,models, working in isolation orThe simple conclusion to this exercise in working together to provide answers. together. anatomy is that, while no single CAE model can be a digital twin in its own The state of the art in engineeringThe point of this is that we dont haveright, any credible digital twin must be simulation is evolving all of the time.to work too hard to make our modelspowered by CAE simulations predictive The distinctions between differentcomprehensive, especially if the costcapabilities. As the digital twin emerges CAE disciplines are becomingof that is a reduction in robustness.from hype into productivity, it provides increasingly blurred. FluidPart of the skill of a CAE engineer isan opportunity for engineering simulations often include structuralworking out which physics to includesimulation to become more useful, more mechanics, structures simulationsin a simulation, and which can beaccurate, and more widely adopted than often include fluid dynamics, andsafely ignored (or modeled using aever. But please stop calling every systems simulation by definitiondifferent method). We should neversimulation model you create a digital include a wide variety of physicalbe scared of simple models thattwin. nphenomena. However, it is doubtfulreliably predict real-world that a single grand-unified CAEperformance. At least in the early model will ever provide all of thedays of the digital twin era, robust, predictive capability required to fullysimple, connected models will be realize the potential of the digitalmore useful than grand-unified twin. The virtual space willsimulations.29'