INNOVATION-September-October-2020

F E A T U R E

An Avcorp employee works on a Boeing commercial aircraft panel. P hoto : A vcorp

WHAT IS DIGITAL TWINNING? Conceptually, the first example of twinning may have occurred more than 50 years ago, when an explosion in the oxygen tanks of Apollo 13 in 1970 about 333,000 kilometres above Earth threatened the lives of the three astronauts on board. NASA engineers scrambled to quickly simulate and perfect new strategies and procedures on the ground before they were communicated to the astronauts in space. Digital twinning essentially takes a real-world physical asset and creates a copy in the digital world using cloud-based data, primarily gathered by physical sensors. A digital twin delivers a visual copy comprised of pure data, which—combined with physics-based simulations—can accurately report on how a component or asset will perform in the real world. Digital twinning is quickly assuming a major role in manufacturing and design around the world. Tesla, for instance, uses digital

twinning to analyze and determine whether its cars are performing as intended. And the Crossrail Ltd. project—a 117-kilometre new railway in the late stages of development in the UK—uses a digital twin of its entire line to assess and optimize the behaviour of components in real-time. PARTNERSHIPS ACROSS BC Avcorp—a leading aerostructure manufacturer headquartered in Delta, BC—is playing a key role in the Learning Factory Digital Twin project. Mike Elvidge, P.Eng., General Manager of Structures and Integration at Avcorp, said that digital twinning is all about using data to learn and predict defects, and then adapting and applying those lessons upstream in the design and manufacturing process. “For us, it’s applying sensors to measure appropriate variables in the manufacturing process,” he said. “For example, temperature, exposure of adhesives, and humidity can all affect how

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