Digital twins in safety analysis, risk assessment and emergency management

Digital twins (DTs) represent an emerging technology that is currently leveraging the monitoring of complex systems, the implementation of autonomous control systems, and assistance during accidents and emergencies in real time. However, aspects such as safety, cybersecurity and reliability of DTs are still open issues that have not been comprehensively addressed. These aspects can offer new insights to evaluate the risk and return obtained from the implementation of DTs. This paper presents a systematic literature review of DTs focused on their use in safety analysis, risk assessment and emergency management. The aim of this work is twofold: (i) to point at the latest advancements in this technology by presenting a catalog of expected functions and twinning enabling technologies in the application domains of interest; and (ii) to point at the limitations and pending challenges on the implementation of DTs for safety analysis, risk assessment and emergency management.