Virtual environment conception for CBM of hydro-electric generating units

Virtual reality is an advanced human-computer interface that simulates a realistic environment. Virtual environment technologies have been shown to provide invaluable training in the performance of complex procedural tasks. Of paramount importance to the success of any VE is realism; entities must move and behave believably and approximate to the complexity of the real world. It is well known that most faults in a power system appear as a localized symptom in their early stages and gradually grow into accidents that are not remediable; it is a trend for hydropower stations to deal with condition-based maintenance. This paper presents a PC-based virtual reality development system within the framework of a condition-based maintenance system (CBM-VR). This development system can provide vital indications of the equipments´ condition, warnings of latent problems, online maintenance guidance and can also be useful for the training of maintenance engineers. The system (including the hardware set-up, software tools and key implementation results) is described.