Digital Twin for resilience and sustainability assessment of port facility
Mingyu Zhu, Carlos Calderón, Alistair Ford, Craig Robson, Jiayi Jin
Abstract
This paper addresses key gaps in Digital Twin research for port operations. It first develops an integrated Digital Twin model for dry bulk terminals, focusing on biomass handling, an area largely overlooked in existing studies. Second, it introduces Building Information Modeling (BIM) to offer a holistic perspective on port sustainability, particularly in relation to energy use and building-related emissions. Third, it tackles the challenge of limited high-resolution data by employing synthetic data and heuristic search methods to calibrate the Digital Twin in the absence of extensive IoT infrastructure. A novel, generic framework is proposed to support resilience and sustainability assessments across various cargo types and terminal facilities. This framework is demonstrated through a working Digital Twin for biomass operations at the Port of Tyne. The study contributes to advancing port Digital Twin technologies and offers new insights for future research in bulk cargo logistics and sustainable port development.