An FMI- and SSP-based Model Integration Methodology for a Digital Twin Platform of a Holistic Railway Infrastructure System

Abstract

Nowadays, the digitalization of large-scale railway infrastructure systems is a major trend, which helps to reduce the life-cycle costs of the railway transportation. For this purpose, the Digital Twin (DT) technology can be used to interoperate different digital data and models, belonging to the railway infrastructure system, in a virtual platform for predictive maintenance, diagnostics and condition monitoring in the railway sector. However, the simulation models of the infrastructure system are tool-dependent, lack ease-of-use and platform compatibility. Therefore, we have to customise them in order to make them more representative and then integrate easily and tool-independently into the DT platform. For this purpose, we propose to use the Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) and System Structure Parameterization (SSP) technologies as open interface standards between the models and software tools. In this work, we demonstrate the application of the FMI and SSP standards separately for two use cases, which include a multibody simulation (MBS) model of a railway vehicle and residual life time (RLT) calculation of a steel bridge.