Monitoring and inspection techniques supporting a digital twin concept in civil engineering

The use of data from non-destructive inspections and from monitoring to accompany the life cycle of buildings and structures is relatively new to civil engineering. Such an approach can be beneficial for a stakeholder in many ways since it helps to schedule maintenance and rehabilitation events in an efficient way, to reduce repair time and effort and to estimate the remaining service life of a structure. It will finally increase the overall performance and sustainability of such structures. The paper will review the challenges and chances of sensing techniques in the frame of a digital twin concept. An example obtained from former research mainly done in the MistralWind project will demonstrate the possibilities of modern sensing techniques applied to a wind turbine.