Gulf Construction Online - Bentley showcases the power of digital twins

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The winners in all categories at the YII 2019 Awards.

Bentley showcases the power of digital twins

01 December 2019

THIS year’s Bentley System’s The Year in Infrastructure (YII) conference was a grand showcase of the software development company’s new offerings to the global infrastructure sector, its acquisitions and partnerships.

The theme of this year’s event was ‘Advancing BIM through Digital Twins’ and it was held from October 21 to 24 at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel’s Sands Expo and Convention Centre in Singapore. Gulf Construction magazine was part of the global media participation, writes ABDULAZIZ KHATTAK.

Bentley has, in the past 35 years, evolved from being a CAD to a BIM and now a Digital Twins software expert – the latter specialisation providing digital representation of a physical asset, process, or system, as well as the engineering information that enables understanding and modelling its performance.

Realising digital twin is the future of infrastructure and engineering, Bentley last year presented its iTwin Services cloud platform.

According to a Bentley spokesman, construction is the largest industry in the world – contributing 13 per cent of the global GDP and is set to grow to comprise an estimated $12.9 trillion market by 2022 – and is positioned to benefit from significant value through productivity improvements.

The World Economic Forum estimates within 10 years, full-scale digitalisation could lead to savings between $700 billion to $1.2 trillion (13 to 21 per cent) in design, engineering, and construction efforts.

According to Santanu Das, senior vice-president of design modelling at Bentley Systems, with the digital twins technology that Bentley is creating and connecting it to sensor-type data in the future, owners can get added value out of their assets.

The YII 2019 also saw announcements of new acquisitions and joint ventures by Bentley and improvements to some of its existing applications.

First off, it announced its acquisition of Citilabs, the provider of global mobility simulation (CUBE) and analytics (Streetlytics) software; and Orbit Geospatial Technologies (Orbit GT), the global provider of 3D and mobile mapping software. The newly-acquired technologies, in conjunction with Bentley’s existing design integration and digital cities offerings, enable engineering-based mobility digital twins.

New capabilities were announced for its industry-leading ProjectWise collaboration platform and a comprehensive expansion of its Synchro 4D construction environment. Together, these robust offerings extend the value of project digital twins across the entire project delivery ecosystem, improving design and constructability coordination workflows.

In addition, with Bentley’s new Synchro cloud services, contractors can 4D-visualise design data and construction models with Microsoft HoloLens 2 augmented reality solutions.

Also at YII 2019, Bentley and Topcon Positioning Systems, a world leader in positioning technology for the survey and construction industries, announced that their new, jointly-owned company – Digital Construction Works (DCW) – was open for business.

DCW provides digital automation, integration, and “twinning” services around a portfolio of fit-for-purpose software and cloud services, from Topcon, Bentley, and other software vendors, to realise the breakthrough potential of constructioneering, for industrialising construction.

Ted Lamboo, CEO of DCW, commented: “The construction industry sees that digitalising their workflows will increase efficiency and avoid risk and overruns. Leveraging digital twins will accelerate this process, and DCW can support the marketplace to make this transition. Our broad spread of digital solutions and services will support our users in this process.”

Meanwhile, Bentley also announced its partnership with Class of Your Own, a UK-headquartered provider of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) curriculum and built environment-focused learning programmes for secondary school students.

David Robertson, director of digital advancement research for Bentley Systems, said: “Our partnership with Class of Your Own demonstrates the two organisations’ shared goal of providing students with valuable learning experiences that apply to real-world infrastructure professions and encourage them to pursue those professions.”

The new, future-focused global curriculum, Design Engineer Construct (DEC) for the World’s Infrastructure, has been developed over several years through Bentley Institute’s support of Class of Your Own’s DEC programs and provides opportunities for students to gain hands-on knowledge and skills for careers in infrastructure professions.

Concluding this year’s event were the YII Awards. About 54 finalists presented projects they had built using Bentley applications, among which two were from the Gulf region: Alec Engineering and Contracting in the 4D Construction Modeling segment for the One Za’abeel project in Dubai, UAE (see Page 84); and Ala Abdulhadi and Khalifa Hawas Consulting Engineering Company (AHCEC) in the reality modelling segment for a project in Madinah, Saudi Arabia.

Next year’s YII will be held in Vancouver, Canada, from October 12 to 15, 2020.