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.