A Methodology for Generating a Digital Twin for Process Industry: A Case Study of a Fiber Processing Pilot Plant

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openAccess

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Journal Title

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2022

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

24
58787-58810

Series

IEEE Access, Volume 10

Abstract

Digital twins are now one of the top trends in Industry 4.0, and many companies are using them to increase their level of digitalization, and, as a result, their productivity and reliability. However, the development of digital twins is difficult, expensive, and time consuming. This article proposes a semi-automated methodology to generate digital twins for process plants by extracting process data from engineering documents using text and image processing techniques. The extracted information is used to build an intermediate graph model, which serves as a starting point for generating a model in a simulation software. The translation of a graph-based model into a simulation software environment necessitates the use of simulator-specific mapping rules. This paper describes an approach for generating a digital twin based on a steady state simulation model, using a Piping and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) as the main source of information. The steady state modeling paradigm is especially suitable for use cases involving retrofits for an operational process plant, also known as a brownfield plant. A methodology and toolchain is proposed, consisting of manual, semi-automated and fully automated steps. A pilot scale brownfield fiber processing plant was used as a case study to demonstrate our proposed methodology and toolchain, and to identify and address issues that may not occur in laboratory scale case studies. The article concludes with an evaluation of unresolved concerns and future research topics for the automated development of a digital twin for a brownfield process system.

Description

Funding Information: This work was supported by Business Finland under Grant 3915/31/2019 and Grant 4153/31/2019. Publisher Copyright: © 2013 IEEE.

Keywords

Digital twin, Directed graph, Flowsheet population, Image recognition, Modeling, Piping and instrumentation diagram, Process industry, Steady state simulation, Text recognition

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Citation

Azangoo, M, Sorsamaki, L, Sierla, S A, Matasniemi, T, Rantala, M, Rainio, K & Vyatkin, V 2022, ' A Methodology for Generating a Digital Twin for Process Industry: A Case Study of a Fiber Processing Pilot Plant ', IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 58787-58810 . https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3178424