Digital Twins (DTs) are forecasted to be used in two-thirds of large industrial companies in the next decade. In the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector, their actual application is still largely at the prototype stage. Industry and academia are currently reconciling many competing definitions and unclear processes for developing DTs. There is a compelling need to establish DTs as practice in AEC by developing common procedures and standards tailored to the sector's procedures and use cases. This paper proposes a step-by-step workflow process for developing a DT for an existing asset in the built environment, providing a proof-of-concept case study based on the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol (UK). To achieve its aim, this paper (i) reviews the state-of-the-art of DTs in Civil Engineering, (ii) proposes a working DT-based workflow framework for the built environment applicable to existing assets, (iii) applies the framework and develops of the physical-virtual architecture to a case study of bridge management, and finally (iv) discusses insights from the application. The main novelty lies in the development of a versatile methodological framework that can be applied to the broad context of civil infrastructure. This paper's importance resides in the knowledge challenge, value proposition and operation dictated by developing a DT workflow for the built environment, which ultimately represents a relevant use case for the digital transformation of national infrastructure.

预计未来十年将有三分之二的大型工业公司使用数字孪生体 (DT)。在建筑、工程和施工 (AEC) 领域，它们的实际应用仍主要处于原型阶段。工业界和学术界目前正在协调许多相互竞争的定义和不明确的开发 DT 的过程。通过开发针对该部门的程序和用例量身定制的通用程序和标准，将 DT 确立为 AEC 中的实践非常有必要。本文提出了为建筑环境中的现有资产开发 DT 的分步工作流程，并提供了基于布里斯托尔（英国）克利夫顿悬索桥的概念验证案例研究。为实现其目标，本文(i)审查土木工程中 DT 的最新技术，(ii)提出适用于现有资产的建筑环境的基于 DT 的工作流程框架，(iii)应用该框架并开发物理-虚拟架构以桥梁管理的案例研究，最后 ( iv ) 讨论来自应用程序的见解。主要的新颖之处在于开发了一种通用的方法框架，该框架可应用于广泛的民用基础设施背景。本文的重要性在于为建筑环境开发 DT 工作流所决定的知识挑战、价值主张和操作，这最终代表了国家基础设施数字化转型的相关用例。