A digital twin of the Heinrich Bridge in Bamberg will make maintenance easier, faster and cheaper and possibly even prolong the life of the bridge itself.

The city of Bamberg in northern Bavaria is known as Little Venice because of its many canals. Spared by WWII bombs, historic houses with latticed frameworks grace wide canals crossed by historic bridges, which all need regular maintenance. This is about to become a lot easier and less expensive with new technology using big data and a digital twin. Its name: the intelligent bridge.

German law requires two walk-through inspections of each of its 100,000 bridges per year. On top of this comes a more thorough bridge inspection called Bridge TÜV 1076, mandated every six years. Finally, standard maintenance procedures are required at regular intervals, regardless of the bridge’s actual condition. These inspections all cost significant time and money. With the intelligent bridge, they could not only be done virtually but provide a constant flow of maintenance data in real-time. This would allow issues to be detected and rectified earlier. It could potentially even prolong the life of the bridge.  

To create a digital twin of an object, a component is sent through the production facility. Along the way, it generates data at each production stage that are then combined to create a digital twin of the actual object. This virtual copy then serves as the basis for configuring further production and processes.

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