The increasing diffusion of digitalization in industry and society is forcing the adopting of tools based on new enabling technologies. This phenomenon is clearly observable in the manufacturing sector, where, due to the diffusion of Industry 4.0 paradigm, physical processes are integrating effectively with digital ones. One recent innovative technology is the Digital Twin (DT), where digital models and physical ones communicate – by sharing data as well as information – usually in a bidirectional way. As recent studies have analyzed the current level of adoption of DT technologies in the manufacturing sector, less effort has been focused on evaluating applications in the safety domain. Theoretically, the DT inherent capability of acquiring data from the physical world - usually developed in real time – together with the potentiality of reliable data processing could support a more effective diffusion of dynamic risk assessment models as well as real time alert management systems for improving safety. Otherwise, the actual capability of real applications highly depends on the level of complexity of the specific DT. The aim of the study is to provide a methodology to assess current application of DT technologies; the framework has been developed in the safety domain aiming to point out to researchers as well as technicians in a clear way the capabilities of a specific DT application. The framework has been adopted for analyzing current applications of DT in the scientific literature aiming to propose a theoretical validation. The application has outlined that, although the number of DT applications in the safety field is not so large, the current tools developed are characterized by a high level of complexity thus providing higher reliability to support the specific safety problem in analysis.

Further developments will be oriented towards developing a quantitative assessment framework to integrate the proposed tool.

数字化在工业和社会中的日益普及迫使基于新的使能技术的工具的采用。这种现象在制造业中很明显，由于工业4.0范式的扩散，物理过程已与数字过程有效地集成在一起。一种最新的创新技术是Digital Twin（DT），其中数字模型和物理模型之间通过共享数据和信息进行通信，通常以双向方式进行。由于最近的研究分析了DT技术在制造业中的当前采用水平，因此较少的精力集中在评估安全领域的应用程序上。从理论上讲 DT从物理世界获取数据的固有能力（通常是实时开发的）以及可靠数据处理的潜力可以支持动态风险评估模型以及实时警报管理系统的更有效传播，以提高安全性。否则，实际应用程序的实际能力在很大程度上取决于特定DT的复杂程度。研究的目的是提供一种评估DT技术当前应用的方法。该框架是在安全领域开发的，旨在以明确的方式向研究人员和技术人员指出特定DT应用程序的功能。该框架已被用于分析DT在科学文献中的当前应用，旨在提出理论上的验证。

进一步的发展将致力于开发一个定量评估框架，以整合拟议的工具。