what is a digital twin and how is one
created let's show you using a demo of
the work we have recently completed with
GE digital foundry bureau first a bit of
background this digital twin is virtual
we integrated it in an offshore wind
turbine the ally at 156 megawatts GE
currently uses just analytics to monitor
the turbines each alarm must be
validated by an operator and this is
difficult and expensive because these
turbines are offshore our demo focuses
on a digital twin of the yaw system it
consists of seven motors each motor
operates independently so we have
created seven twins we have created
seven virtual temperature sensors one on
each motor in order to collect the
temperature data of each individual
motor we started with Maxwell in order
to do an analysis of the thermal
properties of the motor the resulting 3d
physics simulation was used to detect
and compute the maximum temperature on
the coils next we used workbench to
create the reduced order model with
current as input and torque and maximum
temperature as output here is the actual
3d simulation of the motor that was
created the rom of the motor is brought
into the system simulation platform
ances twin builder you can also see that
the input used to create the ROM and the
output from the virtual sensor result in
the expected lifetime of the motor now
we are running the actual system
simulation in ances twin builder on the
left side of the screen you see the
input of the temperature on the coils
and on the right side of the screen you
see the remaining lifetime of the motor
being calculated as the simulation
continues to run you can see the
temperature of the coils going up and
the remaining lifetime of the motor
decreasing
now that the simulation is complete we
need to generate the digital twin here
you can see the code that is the digital
twin being generated by ances twin
builder this code is integrated into GE
predicts for complete predictive
analytics and here are the twins of the
motors that comprise the yaw system of
the wind turbine let's take a look a bit
deeper into one of the motors motor
number one here we can see the current
the temperature and the remaining
lifetime of the motor based on the
operating conditions of the motor in
real time this is hypothetical let's
switch to motor number four this motor
is overheating as indicated by the red
area here the temperature of the motor
is too high and we can actually take a
look at what will happen to the motor if
it continues to operate at this high
temperature the remaining lifetime of
the motor is going to decrease
significantly why is this important to
know without this digital twin the wind
turbine operator has to physically send
a technician to inspect the motors
expensive the digital twin provides all
of this information remotely and in real
time the operator can now plan when to
replace the motors there is no guessing
or physical inspections needed any
longer imagine the savings that the
turbine operators will realize by
implementing digital twins