Innovative technologies in training and education for maintenance team of NPPs

Abstract

Many industries, such as nuclear power plants, chemical industry, oil and gas industry have dangerous working environments and hazardous conditions for employees. Maintenance, inspection and decommissioning activities in these safety-critical areas mean a serious risk, downtime is a significant financial loss. The Virtual Reality Training Platform is reflecting on this shortcoming, by providing the possibility for maintenance workers to be trained and prepared for unexpected scenarios, and to learn complex maintenance protocols without being exposed to unnecessary danger, like high temperature, radiation, etc. Employees can have training for equipment maintenance, dismantling of facilities at closed NPP Units. One of the most significant and unique added value of the immersive virtual reality solution is that the operator can experience lifelike emergencies (detonation, shutdown) under psychological pressure, while all of the physiology indicators can be monitored like eye-tracking. Users can work together anywhere in the world. A huge financial outage in industrial production is the preparation and maintenance downtime, which can be significantly reduced by the Virtual Training platform. This method can increase the accuracy, safety, reliability, and accountability of the maintenance and decommissioning procedures, while operational costs can be reduced as well.