A team of researchers from the University of Granada has installed sensors in the University’s «Hospital Real» — the historical building that houses the Rectorate of the UGR — in order to create a digital twin of it. The initiative, part of the EU-funded BUILDCHAIN project, aims to obtain up-to-date and accurate information on the structural integrity of the building. In this way, for example, the building’s behaviour can be predicted in the event of seismic events. In addition, the sensors are connected to a building information model based on distributed knowledge graphs, making it possible to ‘talk’ to the «Hospital Real» building and retrieve information about its status through a system such as ChatGPT.

The researchers are using several technologies including distributed computing, blockchain and generative artificial intelligence to create the cognitive digital twin. BUILDCHAIN will provide not only a digital building logbook, which will soon be required throughout the European Union, but also valuable real-time information on structural integrity. These advances offer relevant data that can help predict the building’s response to an earthquake, which is particularly important in a seismic area such as Granada. The parameters measured by the sensors thus contribute to conservation by providing knowledge of a monumental complex that dates back to 1504.

«We can’t afford to wait for an earthquake of a certain magnitude to occur in order to understand how the ‘Hospital Real’ will react to it,» explains Juan Chiachío Ruano, a senior lecturer in Structural Engineering at the UGR’s School of Civil Engineering (ETSICCP) and principal investigator of the European project. «While the ‘Hospital Real’ has already answered the question of whether it is able to withstand seismic events of a certain intensity in the past, today we have the technology to predict its response and therefore anticipate maintenance interventions that will allow us to protect its integrity in the long term,» he adds.

BUILDCHAIN will go even further. «The digital twin we are developing is also a source of personalised digital information. This makes it possible to interact with the building at various levels and allows people to obtain the data and information they need, based on their interests,» note Emilio Daroch and Antonio Sánchez, both of whom are UGR researchers involved in the BUILDCHAIN project.

«If a lift technician comes, they can use their work ID to download the data needed to do the job; if a tourist comes to visit, they can use their ID card to access heritage and artistic information, etc.», adds Professor Vlado Stankovski, a BUILDCHAIN researcher from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia).

The BUILDCHAIN project is a European Union initiative involving universities, companies and research centres from Italy, Slovenia, Greece, Serbia, Hungary and Spain.

For more information, you can visit the BUILDCHAIN project website at https://buildchain-project.eu/