Digital Twin and its application feasibility to intelligent pipeline networks

With the advent of the industry 4.0 era, the concept of Digital Twin is flourishing and is gradually being applied in aerospace, automobile manufacturing, military, energy and other industries, which has played a good demonstration effect for its application and development in the industry of pipeline.In this paper, the connotation and evolution process of Digital Twin were introduced.Then, the application practices and cases of Digital Twin in the industries of product design, aircraft fault prediction, automobile manufacturing, intelligent health management of power plant generatorset and complex product assembly were analyzed.Finally, the application prospects of Digital Twin in oil and gas pipeline were discussed from four aspects, e.g.pipeline design, scheduling optimization, pipeline equipment operation and maintenance, and life-cycle pipeline management.In conclusion, the Digital Twin provides the new technical means for the information interaction and fusion between the real pipeline system and the virtual pipeline system, so as to achieve the simulation optimization of virtual pipeline, guide the construction and operation optimization of real pipeline and promote the construction of intelligent pipeline network.