Review of Computational Mechanics, Optimization, and Machine Learning Tools for Digital Twins Applied to Infrastructures

This review discusses the links between the newly introduced concepts of digital twins and more classical finite element modeling, reduced order models, parametric modeling, inverse analysis, machine learning, and parameter identification. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that development, as almost always is the case, is based on previously developed tools that are currently exploited since the technological tools for their implementation are available and the needs of their usage appear. This fact has rarely been declared clearly in the available literature. The need for digital twins in infrastructures arises due to the extreme loadings applied on energy-related infrastructure and to the higher importance that fatigue effects have. Digital twins promise to provide reliable and affordable models that accompany the structure throughout its whole lifetime, make fatigue and degradation prediction more reliable, and support effective predictive maintenance schemes.