CASE STUDY N°4: Development of Virtual Reality training modules
Project objective
Development of training modules for the wind-farm maintenance trades, based on virtual reality and 360° video tours, as part of the European WindEXT project.
The project was carried out within a consortium of eleven partners from six countries: European players in the wind industry (professional associations and maintenance companies), universities and vocational training centres.
The company
WindEXT — Advanced maintenance, lifetime extension and repowering of wind farms — an Erasmus+ project funded by the European Commission (Knowledge Alliances sub-programme).
The background of the project
Training for the wind-farm maintenance trades is made difficult by the remoteness and limited accessibility of the sites. To address this, wind-energy professionals and training providers had identified the need for a virtual-reality training solution.
Summary of DP2i main deliverables
Within the consortium, DP2i was responsible for several of the project’s deliverables:
– CaDWEx (Cascade Damage Explorer) — software for studying the failure cascade within a component, in our case a wind turbine’s gearbox. Starting from the cause of a failure and its immediate consequences, the tool reconstructs the chain of damage. Knowing these cascades makes it possible, from an observed failure, to identify its stage and assess how far the component’s degradation has progressed.
– SIMULWIND 2.0 — a new version of the virtual-reality maintenance simulator, allowing users to work on the wind turbine in an immersive environment. DP2i built in the safety measures required by the standards specific to this type of activity.
– 360° video tours — filming and integration of immersive wind-farm tours, giving remote access to the facilities and equipment.
– Module 3 of the course — “HSE, Repowering and Life-Time Extension” — writing and
structuring, on the MOODLE platform, of the module exploring the health, safety and environmental (HSE) consequences of the major decisions taken at the end of a wind turbine’s life cycle: repowering (replacing or upgrading ageing installations with higher-performance
equipment), lifetime extension (inspection, assessment of component condition and strategies for extending operation beyond the originally planned service life) and decommissioning. The module highlights how each of these decisions affects HSE.
– Module 4 of the course — “Digital Tools” — writing and structuring of the module dedicated to the digital tools developed within the project.
Together, these deliverables form part of the course delivered on the MOODLE platform, which covers wind turbine technology, wind-farm maintenance, safety (HSE), repowering, lifetime extension and decommissioning of installations, as well as digital tools.
Specificity of the project and DP2i Lessons learned
WindEXT ran for nearly three years (2020-2022), spanning the COVID period. The outcome of the project — a digital virtual-reality training solution — is a genuine first for DP2i.