Digital-Twin Enabled "Living Fresco".

Abstract

Translucent polymer-concrete claddings are emerging as multifunctional building skins that merge structural performance, daylighting, and human-architecture interaction. However, the lack of integrated design frameworks coupling durability, real-time aesthetics, and long-term service-life prognosis limits their adoption. Here, we present a glass-fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) mesh-enhanced translucent polymer-concrete (GFRP-TRPC) panel that simultaneously serves as load-bearing façade, AI-driven light canvas, and self-sensing structural element. Epoxy-vinyl ester polymer concrete with 30 vol % recycled glass aggregate and embedded PMMA optical fibers (ϕ 1 mm) was fabricated by a one-step vacuum-assisted resin infusion process, yielding 30-mm-thin elements with 65 MPa compressive strength and 22% optical transmittance. Bidirectional E-glass GFRP grids (44% fiber volume) restrained microcracking and enabled distributed fiber Bragg-grating (FBG) sensing at 5 cm pitch. A vision transformer-generative adversarial network (ViT-GAN) converted real-time skeleton streams from Azure Kinect into 30 fps light patterns on a 12 m curved light-emitting diode (LED) back wall, producing an interactive "living fresco" that increased visitor dwell time by 340%. Edge-deployed TinyML CNNs processed FBG signals to detect 0.1 mm cracks with 96.7% accuracy and autonomously dimmed the artwork as a safety cue. Synchrotron X-ray CT revealed interfacial void fractions below 1.2%, validated by digital image correlation strain fields. A calibrated reduced-order digital twin predicted only 7.8% stiffness loss and <5% optical attenuation after 30 years of Shanghai climate loads, with maintenance alerts triggered six months in advance. This study demonstrates a scalable pathway for polymer-composite building skins to merge artistic expression, structural integrity, and intelligent longevity management.