Meg Riley
This year, Autodesk University was packed with great discussions on the latest developments in and advancements made to technology built for the water industry. We’ve collected the best of these talks from AU, which you can watch at your leisure. These presentations and classes include helpful documents you can download to follow along or take with you.
Digital twins for health and safety
The canals of Glasgow helped make the city a thriving hub for industry in Europe. But they fell into disrepair in the 20th Century, leading to flooding and health risks. Catherine Topley, CEO of Scottish Canals, gave an inspiring speech at AU about how they turned that all around.
In Technology & Transforming Lives, Topley speaks about how Scottish Canals utilized modern digital twin technology to integrate real-time data from sensors with forecasted weather data to predict flooding and adjust water levels. Health outcomes for residents who live along the canals have begun to improve, with mortality rates down by 3% annually and the risk of chronic health diseases down by nearly 15%.
The number of improvements Scottish Canals made in this decade long project is impressive, and the story goes even deeper. Watch the BBC Storyworks film Building Europe’s First Smart Canal to hear from the people who helped make it happen and read our case study about the project.
The digital twin realized
Our Info360 cloud solutions enable water and wastewater utilities to understand operational performance, as well as improve condition assessment, risk management, and planning.
For AU, Mike Pennell demonstrated what you can do with these innovative solutions. Pennell’s talk will help you understand:
- Trends, benefits, challenges, and best practices of deploying operational digital twins
- How Info360 cloud solutions provide a path to deploying operational digital twins for water treatment and distribution
- How IoT monitoring, operational analytics, machine learning, AI, and physics-based simulation models interoperate
- The steps to prepare systems, processes, and people – as well as phase deployment from monitoring to prescriptive automation
Watch Info360 Operational Digital Twin for Water and learn how the Info360 cloud-based solutions create a digital twin.
Fighting water service disruptions
Water service disruptions can be painful, but they are a typical challenge for utilities. This is a challenge the city of Livonia is all too familiar with. With its aging system, this southeast Michigan city experienced severe water system failures.
During AU, Susan Knepper of OHM Advisors discussed how she explored and planned for potential water service disruption scenarios using hydraulic modeling through InfoWater Pro and ArcGIS Dashboards. See how, by joining InfoWater Pro and Info360 solutions, a utility can overcome common water service disruption challenges.
Learn how they did it in An Innovative Approach to Emergency Response Planning with Innovyze. Or, catch the Water Talk we hosted on the same subject matter prior to AU.
Cloud technology to help water professionals make tomorrow’s decisions
What can you achieve with digital twin technology built for the water industry? Patrick Bonk, Michael Pennell, Nathan Gerdts, and Brian Deeley shared state-of-the-art cloud solutions that work together as a digital twin. Together, these solutions simulate predictive “what-if” scenarios that support responses to planned and emerging incidents with real-time AI recommendations, informing the optimization of networks and plants. Discover how to reduce chemical costs, but still maintain compliance per your state’s regulations.
Catch the full presentation Digital Twins with Info360 for Past, Present, and Future State of Networks.
Key takeaways from this discussion:
- How to evaluate the ROI of operational digital twins for water industry
- How to collaborate with operational analytics and AI for problem solving
- How to understand your journey to adoption of water digital twins
- How to integrate your multiple data models for use across your organization
Brazil overcomes its dam water challenges using innovative tools
A small town that lies within the countryside of Brazil had one of its few tourist attractions impaired due to the rupture of the dam in Ayrton Senna Park, which generated significant social and environmental impact.
Ryan Brown, Newton Caxeta, Matheus Lima, Raírio dos Santos Mota, and Fernando Lobo Schettini Figueiredo shared how this small town overcame great dam challenges using innovative tools: Recap, Civil 3D, Revit, Docs, Navisworks, Unity, InfoDrainage and InfoWorks ICM.
Hear the full story in Big Innovyze for Small Town in Brazil.
Prevent flooding at its worst with InfoWorks ICM and Civil3D
As the population grows and climate change worsens, extreme weather events will continue to stress local and regional civil infrastructure. One way our customers are tackling the issue is by using InfoWorks ICM with Civil3D together. This allows engineers to evaluate multiple scenarios in response to extreme rainfall events and possible flood damages across the wide range of flood scenarios.
Are you a Civil3D enthusiast? Our own Matt Anderson shows you how the app can be extended in InfoWorks ICM and Civil3D: A Flood Modeler’s Guide to Project Impacts.
Will we see you at AU in 2023?
There’s more. Peruse the Autodesk University site for more digital presentations, and follow AU on Twitter for updates on future events.