An ontology for digital twin operations and maintenance use cases in the AECO industry

DTs have emerged as a promising technology for built assets. The purpose of the paper is to develop an ontology tailored to the DT operational uses, facilitating communication among stakeholders. A literature review was conducted to collect DT O&M uses from peer-reviewed papers to study existing DT ontologies and classification systems. Additionally, DT use cases were gathered through expert interviews and surveys. The existing ontologies were analyzed, and the DT use ontology was developed and refined using the BIM use ontology as a foundation. Internal and external validation methods were used to validate the ontology. Five primary DT use purposes are identified, including gathering, generating, analyzing, communicating, and realizing. The DT use purposes were further delineated into fifteen secondary uses. Additionally, a structured framework is proposed to consistently document and communicate DT use cases. This research contributes to academic and practical domains by offering a comprehensive understanding of DT uses.