International Journal of Production Research, 2019

Vol. 57, No. 12, 3920–3934, https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2018.1552032

Digital Twin for rotating machinery fault diagnosis in smart manufacturing

Jinjiang Wanga∗ , Lunkuan Yea , Robert X. Gaob∗ , Chen Lia and Laibin Zhanga
a School of Mechanical and Transportation Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, People’s Republic of China;
b Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA

(Received 26 February 2018; accepted 19 November 2018)

With significant advancement in information technologies, Digital Twin has gained increasing attention as it offers an
enabling tool to realise digitally-driven, cloud-enabled manufacturing. Given the nonlinear dynamics and uncertainty
involved during the process of machinery degradation, proper design and adaptability of a Digital Twin model remain a
challenge. This paper presents a Digital Twin reference model for rotating machinery fault diagnosis. The requirements for
constructing the Digital Twin model are discussed, and a model updating scheme based on parameter sensitivity analysis is
proposed to enhance the model adaptability. Experimental data are collected from a rotor system that emulates an unbalance
fault and its progression. The data are then input to a Digital Twin model of the rotor system to investigate its ability of
unbalance quantification and localisation for fault diagnosis. The results show that the constructed Digital Twin rotor model
enables accurate diagnosis and adaptive degradation analysis.
Keywords: Digital Twin; digital manufacturing; cyber-physical system; fault diagnosis

1. Introduction
Recent advancement in the Internet of Things (IoTs), Cyber Physical System (CPS) and Big Data continuously reshapes
modern manufacturing (Wang et al. 2015b; Babiceanu and Seker 2016; Zhong et al. 2017). With the proliferation of data
and computational intelligence, manufacturing processes become increasingly digitalised and new manufacturing paradigms
start to emerge in the form of Cyber-Physical Production Systems, Industrial Internet of Things, and Big Manufacturing Data
Analytics (Wang 2017; Wang et al. 2017a). They aim at flexible and adaptive manufacturing operations, more visibility into
the physical processes, improved condition-awareness of machine equipment, and better control of production processes
(Chavarríabarrientos et al. 2017; Wang et al. 2018).
As modern manufacturing demands high speed, precision and flexibility, equipment reliability and operational safety
become critical issues. The key to ensuring long-term and reliable operation of equipment is not only to fully consider the
factors affecting the operation of equipment at the beginning of the design, but also to strengthen the monitoring and analysis
during the operation of equipment. Advanced monitoring methods, such as intelligent sensing techniques and multi-sensory
information fusion, are the basis for the reliable operation of equipment (Jardine, Lin, and Banjevic 2006; Zhou et al. 2017).
A variety of signal analysis and processing methods have been investigated for long-term operation of equipment under
different operating and environmental conditions (Yan, Gao, and Chen 2014; Feng, Liang, and Chu 2013). The effective use
of computing technologies such as big data and cloud services can greatly improve the management efficiency of equipment
(Ji and Wang 2017; Schmidt and Wang 2016).
The research on equipment fault diagnosis method based on artificial intelligence has been widely developed. However,
such data driven approach relies on statistical models to determine the existence of a fault and predict the fault progres-
sion. Considering the complex nature of faults and the complex relationship between a fault and its corresponding system
response, the performance of the data driven approach may not be sufficiently robust to be free of false alarms (both false
positives and fault negatives).
On the other hand, manufacturing machines are increasingly equipped with sensors and communication capabilities.
Computational intelligence is enabled with big data analytics in the cyber space (Kusiak 2017). Advances in sensor and
communication technologies provide foundations for linking the physical world of machines to the cyber world of compu-
tation (Monostori et al. 2016; Wang et al. 2015a; Gao et al. 2015; Wu et al. 2017; Wang et al. 2017b). Such an integration and
convergence into a cyber-physical world of manufacturing gives rise to a new focus on Digital Twin. It provides a complete

*Corresponding authors. Email: jwang@cup.edu.cn; rxg396@case.edu

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

 International Journal of Production Research 3921

digital footprint of a physical system from design and development through the end of the product lifecycle (Grieves 2015;
Wang and Wang 2018). Optimisation and decision making can then leverage the same type of data that are however updated
in real-time on the physical system through synchronisation enabled by sensors. The concept definition and the role of
Digital Twin have been reviewed for cyber-physical production system (Negri, Fumagalli, and Macchi 2017). From the
simulation’s viewpoint, Digital Twin is discussed in the context of applications to different aspects of manufacturing life
cycle (Boschert and Rosen 2016).
As an evolving digital replica of a physical system, Digital Twin becomes a key enabling technology for cybernetic
manufacturing as shown in Figure 1. Digital Twin not only can be used for modelling and simulation of system development
to support design or to validate system properties (Schleich et al. 2017; Tao et al. 2018) but also can support the operation
and manufacturing service for optimised operations and failure prediction. The idea of Digital Twin as a paradigm shift is
proposed for on-board integrated vehicle health management system to enable flight safety and reliability (Glaessgen and
Stargel 2012). A conceptual model of Digital Twin is presented by integrating the computation of structural defections and
temperatures for prediction of the life of an aircraft structure (Tuegel et al. 2011). A low-power health monitoring system
with data cleaning is developed for cyber-physical machine tool (Deng et al. 2017).
As a custom-tailored model, Digital Twin takes advantage of physics-based simulation models and data driven intelli-
gence to offer valuable clues on how fault would occur and progress. To ensure a good match between the physical system
of interest and the constructed digital model, it is important to investigate how to construct a Digital Twin model to properly
represent the actual conditions associated with a physical system. This paper presents a Digital Twin reference model spe-
cially designed for rotating machinery fault diagnosis. The requirement of constructing the Digital Twin model is discussed,
and a model updating strategy is proposed to enhance the model’s adaptability. Furthermore, a pilot prototype of a rotor
system is constructed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Digital Twin model on unbalance quantification and localisa-
tion for fault diagnosis. Experimental results show that the constructed rotor model can achieve accurate fault diagnosis and
adaptive degradation prediction.
The rest of this paper is constructed as follows. The evolution of Digital Twin and related work are reviewed in Section 2.
Then, a Digital Twin reference model with a model updating strategy is presented for fault diagnosis in Section 3. Next, an
experimental study on the rotor test is performed to validate the performance of the presented model in Section 4. Finally,
conclusions are drawn in Section 5.

Figure 1. The architecture of Digital Twin for digital manufacturing.

3922 J. Wang et al.

2. Related work
2.1. Evolution of Digital Twin technology
From the temporal point of view, there has been an increasing interest in Digital Twin and its evolution as illustrated in
Figure 2. The concept of “twin” is originally derived from NASA’s Apollo Project when the aircraft’s twin body is a real
physical system (Rosen et al. 2015). Twin models help astronauts and staffs make decisions under emergency situations.
With the development of computing technology, more and more computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing
(CAD/CAM) models become possible to simulate the real-world changes in a virtual space. Then, the concept of Digital
Twin is firstly proposed for the formation of a product lifecycle management centre in 2002 (Wang et al. 2015a). At this
stage, Digital Twin is only a digital representation of a physical object to provide a rich three-dimensional view.
With the development of the Internet of Things, it allows the Digital Twin model to support new intelligent services to
connect and interact with the physical object. These capabilities enable the manufacturers to realise and drive new business
models such as predictive maintenance and remote monitoring. By adding the new elements of mixed reality and holographic
experience, Digital Twin enables guided interactions. By seamlessly connecting the physical and digital worlds, it empowers
real-time human-machine collaboration, such as cognitive service, artificial intelligence, and proactive guidance.

2.2. Applications of Digital Twin in manufacturing

Digital twin integrates the life cycle of a product (Tao et al. 2017), and achieves a closed loop and optimisation of the
product design, production, operation, and maintenance, etc. It enables a systematic view of different product phases and
the applications of Digital twin in different life cycles of the product are summarised in Table 1.
In the product design phase, Digital Twin makes full use of computing and simulation functions to enable the optimisa-
tion of design schemes and improve the design models. With the Digital Twin model, it can also facilitate the verification
of product functions, structures and manufacturability. In (Schleich et al. 2017), a comprehensive reference model based on
the concept of Skin Model Shapes is presented to serve as a Digital Twin of the physical product in design and manufacture.
In the production phase, the whole manufacturing process can be real-time controlled and optimised by Digital Twin.
From the input of raw material to the output of finished products, the information of geometrical, equipment, tools, and

Figure 2. Evolution of Digital Twin technology (https://enterprise.microsoft.com/en-us/articles/industries/discrete-

manufacturing/enabling-manufacturing-excellence-new-class-digital-twin).

Table 1. Applications of Digital Twin in the manufacturing life cycle management.

Scenarios Description Reference
Design Realise product reconfiguration, redevelopment, improve R & D Schleich et al. (2017)
Efficiency
Production Realise the production process of autonomy, visualisation, Rosen et al. (2015), Söderberg et al. (2017), Cai
flexibility, improve production efficiency et al. (2017), Zhang et al. (2017, August)
Operation Monitoring the process of product use, promoting the control of Alam and El Saddik (2017), Abramovici, Göbel,
the product and realising the optimal operation and Savarino (2017), Uhlemann et al. (2017)
Maintenance Using data to monitor the state of the product to realise the fault Glaessgen and Stargel (2012), Tuegel et al.
diagnosis and trend prediction (2011), Magargle et al. (2017, July)
 International Journal of Production Research 3923

environment are managed to allow moving from mass production to customised production. In Rosen et al. (2015), Digital
Twin is discussed as the key to implement autonomy and flexibility in intelligent manufacturing. In Söderberg et al. (2017),
Digital Twin is employed for the guarantee of product geometry assurance in the individualised production. In (Cai et al.
2017), the sensing information fusion is investigated for a Digital Twin model of machine tool to monitor the condition
of the equipment. In (Zhang et al. 2017, August), a workshop is modelled by Digital Twin to increase the efficiency of
management.
During the operation phase, the performance data of a product is collected systematically as a part of the Digital Twin
to verify and update the existing models. The gained knowledge from the real operation conditions can be used for the
modification of next generation products. In Alam and El Saddik (2017), a Digital Twin architecture reference model is put
forward for the cloud-based cyber-physical systems (C2PS), and it is applied to a vehicle driving assistance system based
on remote information processing. In Abramovici, Göbel, and Savarino (2017), a virtual twin model is utilised to realise
the reconfiguration of intelligent products at the stage of use. Multi-modal data acquisition is integrated into a Digital Twin
model to realise the cyber-physical production system (Uhlemann et al. 2017).
In the service phase, Digital Twin can provide value-added services with the support of physical simulation and data
driven intelligence. A variety of services, such as fault diagnosis, troubleshooting, remaining useful life prediction, and
maintenance can be implemented to make timely decisions and reduce the risk of accidents. In Magargle et al. (2017, July),
a multi-physical twin model is built to monitor the status of the brake system through multiple angles. NASA hopes to
realise the health management and residual life prediction of the aircraft by building a multi-physical, multi-scale Digital
Twin model (Tuegel et al. 2011; Glaessgen & Stargel 2012).

2.3. Industrial practice

The concept of Digital Twin has been well adopted by industrial practice, especially by production lifecycle management
related industrial pioneers. The applications of Digital Twin in industry are shown in Table 2. Dassault focuses on product
design and user experience, and they think the Digital Twin will simplify the design of complex products. PTC tries to estab-
lish a link between the virtual product model and the physical part to increase manufacturing flexibility and competitiveness.
SIEMENS focuses on the improved efficiency and quality in manufacturing. General Electric promotes the applications of
Digital Twin in forecasting the health and performance of their products over lifetime. ANSYS, Oracle and SAP believe that
Digital Twin will promote the development of business models and the closed loop management of the product life cycle
will push the enterprise’s product innovation process.
From the above analysis, it can be found that condition monitoring, fault diagnosis, and prognosis are the growing
application fields of Digital Twin. By using the simulation models, Digital Twin provides a synthetic way to integrate and
interpret the physical knowledge and data measurements, instead of relying solely on sensor data to detect deviations from
the standard (Boschert and Rosen 2016). The mechanism of typical failure models can be simulated to analyse the root
cause and predict the evolution of the degradation process. Thus, a Digital Twin reference model is investigated hereby to
support the study of fault diagnosis.

3. Digital Twin driven fault diagnosis framework

Digital Twin is essentially a unique living model of the physical system with the support of enabling technologies including
multi-physics simulation, machine learning, AR/VR and cloud service, etc. It allows the continuous adapt to the changes in
the environment or operations and delivers the best business outcome. It offers great potential to optimise operations and

Table 2. List of research effort of major company on Digital Twin.

Company Platform Applications
Dassault 3DEXPERIENCE Optimisation of product performance through the virtual reality fusion of the whole
life cycle of the product
PTC ThingWorx platform Bridging the physical and digital worlds to realise the visualisation of bike on the
computer
Siemens Siemens PLM Smart Factory loop
GE Predix Condition monitoring and forecasting of product over lifetime
ANSYS ANSYS Enhance the physical understanding of simulation in Digital Twin
Oracle Oracle Cloud Combination of IOT, Oracle system, augmented and virtual reality to form Digital
Twin
SAP SAP Leonardo Promoting the development of business model through Digital Twin
3924 J. Wang et al.

maintenance, as well as further accelerates the new product development process. This paper presents a new Digital Twin
reference model for machinery fault diagnosis as shown in Figure 3.
The Digital Twin reference model mainly contains three parts: (a) a physical system in Real Space, (b) a digital model
in Virtual Space, and (c) the connection of data and information that ties the digital model and physical system together.
On the physical side, more and more information about the characteristics of the physical product is collected to get the
real working condition of the product. On the virtual side, by adding numerous behavioural characteristics to Digital Twin
designers can not only visualise the product but also test its performance for fault diagnosis. Then the model updating
technology based on parameter sensitivity analysis is used to realise its dynamic updating of the digital model according to
the working status and operating conditions of the physical system. More details about these three modules are discussed as
follows.

3.1. Physical system and smart sensing

Physical system is tangible in nature. To construct the digital model for fault diagnosis, the attributes of manufacturing
system need to be obtained from diverse sources ranging from the geometrical structure, material properties, process param-
eters, working status, to operating and environmental conditions. Smart sensing techniques can be used to measure the
degradation state of a physical system from three aspects.

(a) Geometrical modelling: the basic parameters of the manufacturing system are obtained from the design phase,
such as material properties, key equipment dimensions, and assembly relationships among the parts. It supports
the subsequent static or dynamic analysis through mechanical, fluid dynamics or other multi-physics simulation
technology.
(b) Working status: The healthy status of a physical system is often manifested as its structural changes. The information
is collected from a variety of smart sensors for manufacturing condition monitoring and analysis, such as electrical
current sensors for power measurement, accelerometer sensors for vibration measurement, dynamometers for force
measurement and acoustic emission sensors.
(c) Operating and environmental conditions: Generally, the dynamic response of a physical system is not only affected
by its healthy status but also coupled with its operating and environmental conditions. Mechanical operating sta-
tus is characterised by complexity and variability of different parameters including cutting depth and speed, etc.
Environmental data affecting the operations of a physical asset include ambient temperature, barometric pressure,
and moisture level. Furthermore, the changes of operating parameters will inevitably introduce uncertainty to the

Figure 3. Digital Twin enabled fault diagnosis framework.

 International Journal of Production Research 3925

evolution of mechanical degradation condition with time, resulting in various machinery degradation patterns in
practice, which poses a challenge to traditional fault diagnosis methods.

3.2. Construction of Digital Twin model

With the obtained physical information and sensing measurements, the Digital Twin model is constructed by leveraging
physics-based models and data driven analytics for fault diagnosis. The proposed Digital Twin model is composed of three
major ingredients including digital model, data analytics and knowledge base as shown in Figure 4.
(a) Digital model: It describes the structure of subsystems, subassemblies, and components and creates a unique model
of each specific system with the collected sensing measurements from manufacturing, operations, and environment.
The digital model simulates normal or abnormal behaviours of the assets, systems, or processes associated with
domain understanding (e.g. statics, dynamics, fluid dynamics, Multiphysics, etc.). The domain understanding could
help create virtual sensors within the digital model to increase the fidelity of the model.
(b) Data analytics: It supports the health analyses and maintenance decision making by leveraging the digital simulation
and data driven intelligence. Data analysis is used to describe, diagnose, predict and prescribe the behaviour of the
physical system for fault diagnosis. Meanwhile, the data analytics results are also passed to the digital model of the
manufacturing system to update the Digital Twin model.
(c) Knowledge base: Knowledge is acquired from the analysis of troubleshooting and repair reports, as well as from the
interaction with diagnostic experts. It represents direct and derived insights, including failure modes, health indi-
cators, diagnostic rule, threshold setting, and operational risks, etc. This capability continuously grows by learning
from user interactions. It enables a manufacturing enterprise to recommend corrective action, determine the ideal
maintenance schedule, and optimise the performance based on the specifics of the individual asset.

3.3. Model updating strategy

Physical system is subject to degradation and affected by the varying operating and environmental conditions. Accordingly,
Digital Twin model is characterised by dynamics, and its response should be able to reflect the actual conditions of a physical
system. The discrepancy of response from the physical system and Digital Twin model becomes a critical issue. Thus, the
technical barrier of Digital Twin lies in how to realise its dynamic model updating to keep consistent with the response of
the physical system.
In order to make the digital twin model mirror the physical system, a model updating scheme based on parameter
sensitive analysis is proposed as shown in Figure 5. The model updating is regarded as an optimisation problem, and the
objective function is to minimise the error between the dynamic response simulated by the Digital Twin model and the
instantaneous response measured from the physical system.
The model updating can be regarded as an optimal solution to the objective function:

min ||R(p)||22 , R(p) = {fe } − {fp } (1)

Figure 4. Essential building blocks of the proposed Digital Twin Model.

3926 J. Wang et al.

Figure 5. Digital Twin mapping scheme by model updating.

s.t.VLB ≤ p ≤ VUB
where p represents the design parameter vector, VLB and VUB are the lower and upper bound of the design parameters,
respectively. The parameter R represents the residual of dynamic response fe simulated by the Digital Twin model and the
instantaneous response fp measured from the physical system. The sensitivity of the objective function R(p) is calculated as
(Brownjohn et al. 2001):
∂R
[S] = (2)
∂p
The parameter modification p can be solved using the pseudo-inverse technique:

{p} = [S]− {R}

1
(3)

where [S]−1 is the pseudo-inverse matrix of the sensitivity matrix [S]. As long as the sensitivity matrix of the system is
obtained, the amount of change of the characteristic quantity can be determined by the optimisation method (e.g. nonlinear
least square algorithm). However, due to a large number of undetermined parameters in the real system, the optimisation
may not lead to satisfactory results. Thus, a new parameter sensitivity analysis method is proposed by introducing the
external variable t to represent the parameter p:


N
pi (t) = a1 + bi ti (4)
i=1

where a1 and bi are constant numbers, and N represents the number of external variables. The relationship function can be
constructed by performing a polynomial fitting to obtain the updated parameter p as:

p = [p1 (t), p2 (t), · · · , pn (t)] (5)

Correspondingly, the instantaneous response measured from physical system can be represented by separated external
variables as:
f (t) = F(K, M , C) = F(fK (p(t)), fM (p(t)), fC (p(t)))
(6)
= fp (p(t)) = ft (t)

where K, M and C represent the stiffness matrix, mass matrix and damping matrix of the system, respectively. Through the
above parameter mapping, the optimisation function of the model updating process can be simplified as:

min ||R(p(t))||22 , R(p) = {fe } − {ft } (7)

s.t. VLB ≤ p(t) ≤ VUB

In this paper, particle swarm optimisation (PSO) is used as an optimisation algorithm for model updating. Compared with
other optimisation methods, PSO has the advantages of easy implementation, high accuracy and fast convergence speed
 International Journal of Production Research 3927

Figure 6. Illustration of the developed Digital Twin model of a rotor system.

(Zhang and Sun 2009). For a particle swarm with N particles Xi (xi1 , xi2 , ··· , xid ), including n particles, the velocity Vi = (Vi1 ,
Vi2 , ···, Vid ) of the ith particle can be obtained by setting the target. The corresponding position and velocity can be changed
by iteration. The formula is as follows:

Vidk+1 = ωVidk + c1 r1 (Pid

k
− Xidk ) + c2 r2 (Pgd
k
− Xidk ) (14)

Xidk+1 = Xidk + Vidk+1 (15)

where ω is the inertia weight, k is the current iterations, Vid is the particle velocity, c1 and c2 are the acceleration factors,
respectively, r1 and r2 are the random numbers ranging from 0 to 1, respectively, and pi and pg are individual extremum and
global extremum, respectively.

4. Experimental studies
To evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of the presented Digital Twin reference model, the experimental studies on
rotor unbalance fault quantification and localisation are performed for fault diagnosis. A pilot Digital Twin model of a rotor
system is constructed as shown in Figure 6. To simulate the fault condition, the rotating discs on the shaft are equipped
with screw holes. The dynamic degradation process is used to evaluate the performance of model updating scheme of the
constructed Digital Twin model.

4.1. Experimental setup

The experimental setup consists of a variable speed controller, a rotor test rig with two discs, four eddy current displacement
sensors, and a data acquisition system. The motor runs at the accelerating stage and the maximum speed is set as 3000 rpm
3928 J. Wang et al.

to drive the rotor system. The four displacement sensors are mounted on both ends of the rotor support in vertical and
horizontal directions to collect vibration signals. The sampling frequency of the data acquisition system is set as 10 KHz.
Considering the actual manufacturing tolerance and installation, the operation of the rotor system has a slight unbalance
fault. In order to eliminate the effect of initial unbalance in the experiment, the three-point-add-mass method is used to
identify the initial unbalance mass. To demonstrate the value of Digital Twin, extra mass can be manually installed in the
rotor to create unbalance faults. Three different rotor conditions are simulated with an unbalance mass of 2.7 × 10−5 kg m,
5.5 × 10−5 kg m, and 7.3 × 10−5 kg m, respectively. Different levels of unbalanced faults are introduced to simulate the
degradation of the physical system.

4.2. Construction of Digital Twin model of a rotor system

In the Digital Twin rotor model, the dynamic behaviour of the rotor system is mainly considered. The transfer matrix
method (Lee, Shih and Kang 1993) and the finite element method (Kirchgäßner 2016) are commonly used to calculate the
dynamic equations of the rotor system. Compared with the transfer matrix method, the finite element method can avoid
the numerical instability and root leakage. Additionally, it takes into account the integrity of the model and the accuracy
of calculation. With the improvement of computational capability, the finite element analysis method is becoming more
and more important in rotor dynamic analysis. Furthermore, finite element analysis shows promising performance on fault
diagnosis and optimisation design of rotor systems (Xie and Wang 2011; Yang and Yang 2010). Therefore, a finite element
model is constructed for fault diagnosis of rotor system.
For a rotor system with N nodes connected by N-1 shaft segments, the displacement vector is assumed to be:

{u0 } = [x1 , y1 , θy1 , −θx1 , x2 , y2 , θy2 , −θx2 , · · · , xN , yN , θyN , −θxN ] (8)

Different from the static system, the rotor system needs to consider the gyroscopic effect caused by the rotation. Thus, the
dynamic equation of the rotor system under normal condition can be formulated as:

M ü0 + (ωG + C)u̇0 + Ku0 = Q0 (9)

where M, G, C, K, Q0 , u0 refer to the global mass matrix, the global gyroscopic matrix, the global damping matrix, the
global stiffness matrix, the node force vector and the node displacement vector, respectively.
Consequently, the displacement, velocity and acceleration of each point in the rotor system can be determined. Accord-
ingly, the critical speed is one representative parameter in the rotor system, and can be obtained from the eigenvalue
problem:
(K − λ2 M̄ )φ = 0
(10)
where M̄ = M − jωG
where φ is the mode shape and λ is the natural frequency corresponding to the critical speeds of the rotor system.
During the operating process, unbalance may occur on the rotor system, resulting in an additional centrifugal force as:

F = mrω2 (11)

where F, m, r, ω refer to centrifugal force, eccentric mass, eccentricity radius and rotating angular velocity of the rotor,
respectively. A new dynamic equation of the rotor system under unbalanced condition can be formulated as:

M ü + (ωG + C)ü + Ku = Q0 + F (12)

The dynamic behaviour will change for a rotor system with unbalance, and its response will be reflected in the vibration
signals collected by sensors. This change can be taken as an external load acting on the rotor system under normal condition,
which is also called equivalent load or fault load, as denoted as F in Equation (11). Generally, a rotor fault type corresponds
to a specific dynamic behaviour, that is, an equivalent load corresponds to a specific failure response. Compared the theo-
retical equivalent load with the actual equivalent load, the fault type, position and severity of the system can be identified
quantitatively by the optimisation algorithm. In order to determine the location of the rotor system failure, the equivalent
load at each node of the rotor needs to be obtained. The modal expansion method (Markert, Platz, & Seidler 2001) is utilised
to extend the vector information of all nodes. The equivalent load of each node can be calculated as:

Ft = {[(C)T (C)]−1 (C)T }FMt (13)

where C is the measurable matrix, and Φ is a modal matrix composed of mode vectors.
 International Journal of Production Research 3929

Table 3. The parameters for construction of Digi-

tal Twin model of rotor system.
Parameter Initial value
Length of shaft 0.56 m
Diameter of shaft 0.008 m
Disc radius 0.0305 m
Disk weight 0.806 kg
Initial unbalance mass 2.7 × 10−5 kg m
Young’s modulus 2.1 × 1011 N/m2
Poisson ratio 0.3
Density 7.8 × 103 kg/m3
Stiffness of bearing K XX , K YY 1.00 × 106 N/m
Damping of bearing C XX, C YY 5 × 103 N s/m

Figure 7. Convergence process of residual objective function.

Considering the effect of couplings on the rotor, the node at the coupling should be constrained. Due to the distributed
shaft material damping, the effects of rotary inertial, translator inertia, shear deformation, gyroscopic moments and circula-
tory forces should also be considered in the rotor system model. The disc is considered to be rigid and has been represented
by its inertia properties. The initialised parameters used to construct the Digital Twin rotor model are listed in Table 3.

4.3. Model updating of Digital Twin

With the constructed rotor Digital Twin model based on rotor dynamics, the critical speed and unbalance response of the
rotor under different conditions are obtained by finite element analysis. Initially, there is a large discrepancy between the
simulated dynamic response of the Digital Twin model and measured vibration signal of the rotor system in terms of critical
speed and vibration amplitude as shown in Figure 8a. Then the parameter (unbalance mass) of the initial finite element
rotor model is updated by the model updating method. The key to updating the model is the determination of the updating
parameters and characteristic variables. Because of the difficulty in obtaining the inherent property of the rotor system
under running condition, the characteristic variables, including the first order critical speed and the unbalanced response
under the operating condition of the rotor, are selected for model updating. After determining the updating parameters and
characteristic variables required for the Digital Twin model updating, the objective of the model updating can be constructed:

R(p, um ) = fD (C, um ) − fM (C, um ) (14)

where fD and fM are the functions of updating parameters of critical speed C and unbalanced amplitude um from the digital
system and physical system, respectively. The error R(p, um ) is minimised for the best fitting to update the Digital Twin
model at different levels of unbalance of the rotor system.
3930 J. Wang et al.

Table 4. The optimised parameters in the model updating process.

Index Updated parameter Before updating After updating
1 Critical speed C 2256 RPM 2047 RPM
Vib. Amp. um 0.955 µm 1.220 µm
2 Critical speed C 2047 RPM 2137 RPM
Vib. Amp. um 1.220 µm 2.257 µm
3 Critical speed C 2137 RPM 2086 RPM
Vib. Amp. um 2.257 µm 3.523 µm

(a) (b)
Figure 8. Dynamic response comparison between model simulation and physical system, (a) before model updating, (b) after model
updating.

Two different parameter optimisation schemes based on the PSO algorithm including single-parameter (critical speed)
optimisation and the multi-parameter (critical speed, unbalanced amplitude) optimisation are investigated, and the conver-
gence results are shown in Figure 7. With the increasing of iterations, the objective function (residual function) decreases
and finally tends to zero. Comparing these two optimisation processes, it can be seen that the multiple parameter optimisa-
tion method shows an accelerated speed of iteration. The optimised parameters results of critical speed C and unbalanced
amplitude um are obtained as shown in Table 4.
After model updating, the dynamic response of the Digital Twin model is shown in Figure 8b. The consistency between
the experimental data and the simulated response of the updated Digital Twin model is greatly improved. Additionally, two
more sets of unbalance tests are performed to simulate the defect progression in the rotor system, and the results of the
updated Digital Twin models are shown in Figure 9.

4.4. Result analysis

The performance of the updated Digital Twin model on rotor analysis under different levels of unbalance is analysed and
the results are summarised in Table 5. In the process of three updates, the digital twin model of the rotor system is updating
when parameters are updated, i.e. the unbalance mass is upgraded to 2.7 × 10−5 kg·m, 5.5 × 10−5 kg·m and 7.3 × 10−5
kg·m, respectively. The errors of target parameters are also reduced: the errors of critical speed are reduced to 1.1%, 0.4%
and 0.4%, and the amplitudes of vibration are reduced to 4.9%, 1.9% and 1.2% respectively. From the above analysis, it
can be seen that the model updating technique can be used to construct a digital twin model that tracks the actual physical
system.
According to the constructed Digital Twin rotor model in Section 4.2, the parameters of three unbalance faults of the
rotor system can be identified by the modal expansion method as shown in Figure 10. The equivalent load increases with
the increase of unbalance mass at the seventh node. Thus, it can derive that the unbalance fault is most likely occurred in the
rotating disc on the right. It can be seen that the developed Digital Twin model can also effectively localise the unbalance
fault in rotor system.
 International Journal of Production Research 3931

Figure 9. Dynamic response comparison between model simulation and physical system under different levels of unbalance.

Table 5. The model updating process of a rotor system.

No. Parameters Before updating After updating Results
Process 1 Unbalance = Unbalance mass:
2.7 × 10−5 kg m 0 → 2.7 × 10−5
(kg m)

Critical speed 2025 RPM 2256 RPM 2047 RPM Error:

11.4% → 1.1%
Vib. Amp. 1.284 µm 0.955 µm 1.220 µm Error:
25.6% → 4.9%
Process 2 Unbalance = Unbalance mass:
5.5 × 10−5 kg m 2.7 × 10−5 →
5.5 × 10−5
(kg m)

Critical speed 2128 RPM 2047 RPM 2137 RPM Error:

3.8% → 0.4%
Vib. Amp. 2.301 µm 1.220 µm 2.257 µm Error:
46.9% → 1.9%
Process 3 Unbalance = Unbalance mass:
7.3 × 10−5 kg m 5.5 × 10−5 →
7.3 × 10−5
(kg m)

Critical speed 2095 RPM 2137 RPM 2086 RPM Error:

2.0% → 0.4%
Vib. Amp. 3.565 µm 2.257 µm 3.523 µm Error:
36.7% → 1.2%

4.5. Discussion
Unbalance is a common fault in rotating machinery, and it has been widely investigated using signal processing techniques,
such as spectrum analysis, and time–frequency analysis. The analysis results of the measured vibration signals using Fourier
3932 J. Wang et al.

Figure 10. Equivalent load of rotor system under different unbalanced mass of the seventh node: (a) 2.7 × 10−5 (kg m), (b) 5.5 × 10−5
(kg m), (c) 7.3 × 10−5 (kg m).

Figure 11. Spectrum analysis and time-frequency analysis results of rotor unbalance faults with: (a)–(b) 2.7 × 10−5 kg m unbalance
mass, (c)–(d) 5.5 × 10−5 kg m unbalance mass, (e)–(f) 7.3 × 10−5 kg m unbalance mass.

transform and wavelet transform are shown in Figure 11. It can be found that the amplitudes of spectrum energy at rotating
speed are elevated under the different unbalance fault conditions. However, it is still difficult to interpret the severity of
unbalance fault of rotor system. For the vibration signal analysis, it is also difficult to localise the unbalance fault for
multi-stage rotor system.
As discussed above, the fault diagnosis method based on digital twin can effectively combine the mathematical model
of the rotor system with the collected data, identify the fault parameters of the rotor system, and realise the quantitative
diagnosis of the rotor system. Therefore, compared with traditional fault diagnosis methods, Digital Twin can achieve
unbalance quantification and localisation for fault diagnosis, which can help implement accurate diagnosis and maintenance
of rotating machinery.

5. Conclusions
As an enabling tool for convergence between a physical system and its digital representation, Digital Twin integrates phys-
ical knowledge and data driven intelligence into one model, providing a new perspective for fault diagnosis. Based on the
results obtained in this study, the following conclusions can be drawn.
(1) A preliminary Digital Twin reference model has been developed specifically for the rotating machinery, and digital
twins can bring advanced computing capability into machinery health management.
(2) A parameter sensitivity analysis based model updating scheme is investigated to enhance the model adaptability.
With the sensitivity analysis of model parameters, the model updating scheme can achieve better convergence rate.
 International Journal of Production Research 3933

(3) A pilot digital twin prototype of a rotor system is constructed, and demonstrates its effectiveness on diagnosing
rotor unbalance fault and predicting its progression. The diagnosis error can be reduced to less than 5%.

Considering the complex structures and varying operating conditions in real machinery, construction of a multi-physics
coupled digital twin model including multi-scale damage modelling, advanced data analytics, and uncertainty quantification
is still challenging and will be focused in our next-step study.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This research acknowledges the financial support provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number
2016YFC0802103], the National Key Research and Development Program of China [grant number 2016YFC0802103], National Natural
Science Foundation of China [grant number 51504274], and Science Foundation of China University of Petroleum, Beijing [grant number
ZX20180008]. The constructive comments from the anonymous reviews are greatly appreciated to improve the paper.

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