Cloud-Based Digital Twinning for Structural Health Monitoring Using Deep Learning

Digital twin (DT) technology has recently gathered pace in the engineering communities as it allows for the convergence of the real structure and its digital counterpart throughout their entire life-cycle. With the rapid development of supporting technologies, including machine learning (ML), 5G/6G, cloud computing, and Internet of Things, DT has been moving progressively from concept to practice. In this article, a DT framework based on cloud computing and deep learning (DL) for structural health monitoring is proposed to efficiently perform real-time monitoring and proactive maintenance. The framework consists of structural components, device measurements, and digital models formed by combining different submodels, including mathematical, finite element, and ML ones. The data interaction among physical structure, digital model, and human interventions are enhanced by using cloud computing infrastructure and a user-friendly web application. The feasibility of the proposed framework is demonstrated via case studies of damage detection of model bridge and real bridge structures using DL algorithms, with high accuracy of 92%.