Automatic generation of thermohydraulic model specifications using 3D-CAD data to enable plant digital twins

抄録

This study proposes a preprocessing method to address poor data integrity and excessive pipe parts information in industrial-scale CAD used for automatic model generation. Pipe connection relationships are first classified to strategically implement reconstruction steps based on a geometric approach. Critical pipe parts for simulation are then identified to reduce the final model size. Validation using actual plant CAD data revealed that the proposed method configured pipe connections although 25.5% of the data had integrity issues. The method also generated a model specification with 66% node reduction compared to unprocessed CAD. Furthermore, the thermohydraulic model built upon the simplified model specification achieved ninefold faster computational speed without compromising simulation accuracy. Additional tests showed that the model simulated actual plant operation with a maximum error of only 1.2%, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method in building accurate models that enable plant digital twins.