ASHRAE's Digital Twin Evolves To Serve Renovation, Future Projects
From June 2022 Insights
“Digital Twin is an industry buzzword, and everyone has their own definition,” said Naman Patwari, Technical Lead at Pinnacle Infotech.
With major advancements being made with ASHRAE’s very own digital twin, the big question emerges: What is ASHRAE’s Digital Twin?
ASHRAE’s decision to invest in the digital twin stems from initial renovations to the organization’s global headquarters in January 2020 at which time their partnership with Pinnacle Infotech began.
The digital counterpart of the 67,000 sq. ft. ASHRAE headquarters in Atlanta serves as a model in assisting with the renovations that are occurring, said Michael Vaughn, Senior Manager of Research & Technical Services at ASHRAE.
“The design team had to be careful not to undermine the structural integrity of the building by cutting a lot of holes in the concrete structure,” said Vaughn. “Having the digital twin for this renovation was a very useful tool for the design team and will continue to be a useful tool if we decide to make other changes to the building in the future.”
The digital twin will not only serve as a renovation tool but will offer a series of benefits for future projects at ASHRAE.
Patwari says a big challenge for owners is to make their BMS, CMMS systems and BIM model interoperable to monitor, manage and fine-tune their assets.
“Any facility spends more than 90% of its lifecycle in the operational stage where the owner needs to execute maintenance tasks on the various assets used in the facility,” said Patwari. “A significant opportunity exists to capitalize on the construction information by delivering a holistic and usable view of design and construction data as a digital twin of the built asset.”
Pinnacle’s Digital Twin platform offers a CMMS solution with an interactive 3D model viewer that can interpret live BMS data. This allows the ASHRAE team to interpret the data using custom graphs and make informed decisions through remotely visiting the 3D model.
Other benefited areas are real-time condition monitors, predictive risk & failure assessments, preventive maintenance, scenario simulation, VR assisted maintenance and more.
“ASHRAE has been pioneers of new technology and saw future value in this BIM model created by Pinnacle,” said Patwari. “Pinnacle’s vision is to use the BIM model created during construction as the base of the Digital Twin used during facility operations.”
The BIM model and asset registry of ASHRAE will continue to undergo updates as renovations keep happening. Pinnacle’s Digital Twin platform is constantly evolving, as it is still in beta and experimenting with new features as valuable feedback is received from ASHRAE.
Credit: Pinnacle Infotech