Digital Twins for Sustainable Cities, Buildings and Infrastructure
Thomas Bednar
Vienna University of Technology
Digital twins of buildings, infrastructures, and cities are increasingly mentioned as helpful for optimally operating the built environment (e.g., EPBD recast 2023). In the context of the presentation, I discuss how digital twins can already be created and used during the conceptualization, planning, and execution of construction projects. The considerations’ starting point is not the participants’ arbitrary wishes for as much information as possible but the need for analysis and simulation tools. A particular difficulty is the use of similar yet different tools for the analysis of buildings. The adoption and further use of digital models created by other stakeholders means that there must be trust in the models. Here, I will show a proposal of our group on how faith in models could be established based on ISO standards.
Speaker bio: Thomas BEDNAR, M.Sc. and Ph.D. from TU Wien, is a full professor for Building Physics at TU. His main research focus is prediction models for hygrothermal and acoustic performance of buildings. He has written many papers related to energy use, moisture, and building acoustics, both on calculations and measurements. He is the scientific project leader of the TU Wien plus-plus energy high-rise office building. Since leading the doctoral school URBEM at TU Wien, focusing on the urban energy and mobility system, he is head of the development of an open and flexible multistakeholder IT-environment SIMULTAN at TU Wien for developing and understanding the built environment. One of the major use cases of SIMULTAN is the virtual airport Vienna.