A 3D learning tool for a hydroelectric unit

Abstract

This paper presents a new learning system for a hydroelectric unit of energy (HUE) by using desktop virtual reality (VR) techniques. The software offers the possibility to understand the relation between the physical structures of a UHE, through computer simulations, graphical outputs, and animations. Three learning courses are offered. Educative is the first course that allows familiarizes the student with the structure and with the constituent pieces of a HUE, as well its general and technical information. The second course, maintenance, uses the learning approach based on practice and offers different learning levels, divided into three modes: automatic, guided, and exploratory, in which these modes are accessed according to the acquired degree of knowledge by the user in relation to maintenance procedures. The last course, operation learning, allows the student to visualize the operation of HUE during a certain event as the electromechanical dynamics of the turbine-generator assemblage in the virtual world by the visualization of several requisite conditions before the startup procedure of HUE. Finally, it was made a performance comparison between the Electrical Engineering students which used the learning module with the case where that was not adopted. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.