On March 28-29, 2024, the 26th China Expressway Informatisation Conference and Technology Product Expo grandly opened at the Hefei Binhu International Convention and Exhibition Center. With the theme of "Innovation Leadership · Digital Transformation · Intelligent Upgrade," over 20,000 industry colleagues and business representatives attended the conference and exhibition, deeply discussing the innovative development of expressway informatization planning, design, construction, management, and services, and showcasing the latest achievements in the research and development and application of China's expressway informatization technology products. Brilliant  Co., Ltd. participated deeply in the conference with its digital twin operating system BLinkOS, smart expressway solutions, and outstanding case studies.

On the morning of March 29th, the "Smart Tunnel" thematic forum, hosted by the China Highway and Transportation Society, officially commenced, with a packed audience and overwhelming popularity. Mr. Zhou Yuanjin, Vice President of Brilliant  Co., Ltd., was invited to make a thematic presentation on "Digital Twin Tunnel Construction" at the forum.

Since its establishment in 2005, Brilliant Co., Ltd. has been deeply involved in the field of digital construction for nearly two decades, always adhering to independent innovation. The company has set up R&D centers in Chongqing and Chengdu, and has offices and project departments in Xi'an, Nanjing, and other places. With the concept of "infrastructure digitization and digital infrastructure fundamentalization," the company has developed its own intellectual property rights digital twin operating system, BLinkOS.

Tunnels, as an important part of expressways, have several pain points in traditional management, such as narrow and elongated spaces, closed structures, lack of emergency lanes, black-and-white hole effects, difficulty in risk identification, difficulty in handling accidents, and significant impacts.

The digital twin smart tunnel solution, based on the BLinkOS digital twin operating system, starts with the equal emphasis on "design, construction, and operation." It can achieve integrated management of vehicles, personnel, equipment, environment, and safety. This solution realizes a full process control from analysis, monitoring, and alarming to early warning, simulation, emergency plans, and equipment maintenance, as well as road maintenance, thereby enhancing the efficiency and safety of tunnel management.

Digital Twin Design

Integration of Diverse Heterogeneous Data: Leveraging the compatibility with multi-source heterogeneous data and capabilities such as collision analysis in terms of time and space, it is possible to integrate design outcomes from different professional fields (structures, weak electricity, mechanical and electrical, etc.).

Design Outcome Adjustment: The system includes a rich library of models and assets, covering common equipment and facilities for smart transportation. It allows for quick adjustment of design outcomes through drag-and-drop methods.

Design Outcome Presentation: Utilizing integrated 2D and 3D visualization methods, this approach achieves the integration of design and current spatial data, transforming planning and design schemes from text and documents into intuitive and visual formats. This provides quantifiable and visual decision support for planning and design evaluation.

Digital Twin Construction

Integrated Management of Engineering Construction and Operations: The digital twin smart tunnel solution leverages digital technology and intelligent methods to achieve digital management throughout the entire lifecycle of construction projects, enhancing the quality, efficiency, and sustainability of the projects.

Smart Construction Site Management: The smart construction site management system utilizes information technology to encompass the entire construction process, establishing an interconnected, collaborative, intelligent production, and scientifically managed construction project information ecosystem. Data is mined and analyzed in a virtual environment to achieve visual and intelligent management of construction projects, thereby enhancing the level of construction management informatization. Smart construction site management focuses on several key factors of the construction site, including "personnel, safety, quality, progress, collaboration, and environment." Through the organizational structure of smart construction site users, it ensures effective information reach, timely follow-up on issues, and orderly management of the construction site, creating a safe and efficient workplace.

Digital Twin Operations

Twin Asset Management: Unlike traditional asset ledger management, the visual asset management system is based on the digital twin service platform. It constructs a location-based visual equipment asset management system that enables lifecycle management of assets, including location tracking, maintenance, and status monitoring on a full-scene map.

Bridge Operation Monitoring: By integrating emerging digital twin technologies such as BIM (Building Information Modeling), GIS (Geographic Information System), 3D modeling, and the Internet of Things (IoT), a digital twin platform serves as the foundation. It integrates multi-source data including text images, spatial information, and IoT sensors to construct a three-dimensional spatial information-based digital twin bridge. This enables business management needs such as predictive analysis of bridge structure damage evolution, service life assessment, maintenance and inspection tracking, and safety protection supervision.

Tunnel Operation Monitoring: Based on a digital twin platform combined with the Internet of Things (IoT), it achieves comprehensive centralization of tunnel safe operation and management, significantly enhancing the tunnel's overall disaster prevention, mitigation, and response capabilities, as well as the vehicle passage capacity, thereby improving the operational safety and integrated management efficiency of expressway tunnels.

Emergency Simulation Training and Command Scheduling: Utilizing virtual reality technology, a virtual space digital model is established to simulate and predict various emergency events in the transportation system (such as traffic accidents, congestion, disasters, terrorist attacks, etc.). It assesses the impact range and extent of these events, formulates emergency plans and schemes, and conducts training and command for the emergency processes of the transportation system. This enhances the skills and capabilities of emergency personnel, improves the level and quality of emergency command, reduces the losses and impacts of emergency events, and ensures the safety and risk prevention of the transportation system.

Comprehensive Traffic Situation Simulation: Based on digital intelligence, this capability allows for the digital construction of rules from the physical world (such as economic factors, functional zones, traffic regulations, weather, etc.). Users can independently select scenarios to visualize future traffic operation trends. The system can diagnose key performance indicators and, based on real-time operational data, perform iterative simulations to achieve optimized management and decision support for the traffic system.

During the exhibition, the booth of Boneng Co., Ltd. remained continuously popular. The self-developed digital twin operating system BLinkOS, digital twin expressway solutions, and practical application cases displayed by Boneng Co., Ltd. attracted the attention of a large number of professional visitors and potential clients. There was a steady stream of people in front of the booth, with many stopping to watch, inquire, and take photos to remember the occasion, creating a lively yet orderly atmosphere at the venue.