Application of digital twin technologies in construction: an overview of opportunities and challenges

Digital twin technologies have been widely used among different industries, for which different conceptual models and system architectures have been proposed. However, the processes are required to establish a digital twin for intended use cases have not been fully studied. This study adopts a systematic literature review analysis focusing on case studies on digital twin models, highlighting the practical steps in developing a digital twin and the challenges faced by various researchers in this field. After a rigorous selection of relevant literature, a total of 23 scientific publications were systematically reviewed. The literature focused on recent publications (2016-2021) to convey updated information regarding the developments of digital twins in the construction domain. The findings synthesized the main processes of establishing and using digital twin technologies in the AEC industry, including the data acquisition processes, data transmission processes, data modeling processes, data integration processes, and the servicing processes. Although digital twin models could improve the stakeholders’ decision-making processes, several challenges regarding data integration and data security still exist in the current applications. The digital twin models require people with the right skills to construct them, a large amount of funds, and the latest technologies with higher computational power to successfully develop them.