The structural integrity and risk management of long-distance oil and gas pipelines are critically challenged by multi-source data heterogeneity, complex multi-physics degradation mechanisms, and the dynamic nature of operational environments. Traditional monolithic artificial intelligence models struggle with cross-domain knowledge fusion and often suffer from historical context forgetting over decades-long infrastructure lifecycles. To address these bottlenecks, this paper proposes an evolutionary digital twin framework driven by a collaborative architecture between small specialized models and a large general model. Specifically, the framework encapsulates physics-informed models (e.g., corrosion prediction and geohazard evaluation) as domain expert agents to guarantee rigorous numerical computation at the edge, keeping sensitive operational data strictly localized. To synthesize conflicting localized risks, a locally deployed, privacy-preserving large language model acts as a central cognitive hub. This hub utilizes external knowledge retrieval and structured reasoning to formulate transparent, multi-objective intervention strategies. Furthermore, a continuous feedback learning mechanism is introduced to capture tacit expert knowledge. By formalizing human operational interventions into historical memory and employing parameter stabilization techniques, the system dynamically updates its knowledge base while effectively mitigating catastrophic forgetting. Ultimately, the proposed framework provides a reliable and privacy-compliant methodology, significantly enhancing the interpretability and predictive foresight of pipeline integrity management.
Shi et al. (Tue,) studied this question.