Digital Twin-based Prognostics and Health Management for Subsea systems: Concepts, Classification, Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Digital Twin (DT) constitutes to be an important pillar for industrial transformation to digitalization. Both academics and industries have recently started the exploration on methodologies and techniques related to DT. A systematic overview on the relationships and differences between DT and traditional approaches, such as simulation, is thus needed. This paper aims to contribute towards better understanding of DT, by reviewing different DT types in an effort for their classification. Subsea production is the focusing industry in this study, where conventional corrective/age-based maintenance is shifting towards condition-based maintenance (CBM) and prognostics and health management (PHM). DT is believed to be meaningful to improve efficiencies and reduce costs of such activities, but technical difficulties of DT-based PHM are existing to impede real-world applications. We outline some of these opportunities and identify challenges of DT-based PHM with an aim of highlighting future research perspectives.