Towards the life-cycle sustainability in construction: A Digital twin approach 1=Built environment 2=Digital economy

DT technique plays a key role in sharing information among engineers, project managers, and technicians in different life cycle stages of the buildings, meaning that different stakeholders can communicate technical complexities and arrive at a smart decision, hopefully, improving the sustainability and reducing the risk and cost of the buildings. It is necessary to fully exploit the potential of the state-of-the-art DT technique and integrate it into the existing construction management to enhance the sustainability of the buildings during the whole life cycle.

The main aim of this project is to investigate the direction and challenges of the development of digital twin in the construction industry and propose a comprehensive framework on how to integrate DT technology into construction management to enhance life-cycle sustainability. The objectives of the project are:

(1) to summarise the recent direction and benefits of DT in the construction industry and investigate the influential factors and barriers to DT adoption in the construction industry from an end-user perspective

(2) to design a case study by using a DT application that integrates multi-source data including time schedule, sustainability indexes, and capital costs across the whole lifecycle of the proposed building which aims at enhancing sustainability over the building's lifecycle.

(3) to verify the effectiveness of the proposed DT application using the LCA method. Different scenarios (with/without DT) would be assessed using software, hopefully, leading to the demonstration of the superiority of the application of DT in sustainable construction during the life cycle.

(4) to propose a comprehensive framework on how to integrate DT technology into construction management to enhance life-cycle sustainability.

This project aims at designing a DT model for the proposed building, a comprehensive LCA method for sustainability assessment and mapping a framework of DT application in construction management. Four principal areas would be: (1) Creating a DT model. (2) Proposing an LCA method for the sustainability assessment of the building.

(3) Conducting a comparative LCA of different construction scenarios. (4) Mapping a comprehensive framework on the DT application in construction management.