Building a Digital Twin for Mechanical Systems using a Global Expansion Approach

Digital twins of structures are virtual representation of mechanical systems that continuously update using sensor data. However, correlating the million degrees of freedom of the numerical models for the digital twin to the test data is challenging. Thus, proper expansion techniques are desirable. This paper provides analysis of a cantilever beam's dynamic response through the integration of experimental and numerical approaches. There are reduction/expansion approaches to match these degrees of freedom. However, the traditional approaches can only expand displacement, velocity, and acceleration. Sometimes, only strain data is available on the structure. Some researchers have discovered approaches for strain expansion and reduction. This paper describes a global expansion approach for expanding test data capable of expanding strain to displacement or displacement to strain. To show the merit of the approach, a digital twin of a beam is created and tested in the current work.