Integration of Smart Materials and Digital Twins: A New Paradigm for Enhancing Urban Infrastructure Resilience

Abstract

Against the backdrop of advancing urbanization and frequent extreme environmental disturbances, the demand for resilient urban infrastructure is growing urgent. The integration of smart materials (SMs) and digital twin (DT) technology has become a revolutionary paradigm to overcome the limitations of traditional infrastructure management: SMs endow physical infrastructure with real-time sensing and adaptive response capabilities, while DTs build virtual-real mapping models to enable full-life-cycle visualization, simulation and predictive management. This study systematically reviews their integration mechanism, focusing on synergistic effects in enhancing infrastructure resilience. It clarifies the core characteristics of SMs and DT technical frameworks for urban infrastructure, analyzes integration paths in typical systems (transportation, water supply and drainage, energy), presents regional case studies to verify application effects, and discusses current challenges (data synchronization, model calibration, multi-system collaboration) and future research directions. The study provides theoretical and technical references for intelligent upgrading of urban infrastructure and improving its resilience to complex disturbances.

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