DEVELOPMENT OF VIRTUAL PRODUCTION ON THE EXAMPLE OF A PENTANE-HEXANE FRACTION SEPARATION UNIT
Relevance The development of the educational process in educational institutions and enterprises requires appropriate improvement of computer training systems. For the training of highly professional personnel, the development of high-tech computer simulators using modern virtual reality technologies is required. AR and VR are a direction which popularity is growing from year to year. Today, almost every company is interested in applications using these technologies. From Oculus to MSQRD, from simple apps that project various toys in the room to IKEA view apps and more and so on. There are a huge variety of application options. But there is also not the most popular in comparison with them, but in fact a useful area - teaching a person new skills and simplifying his daily work. Here, as an example, we can cite simulators for doctors, pilots and even law enforcement agencies. Chemical and petrochemical enterprises are implementing these technologies as part of the digitalization of production. The main consumer is a direct employee of the production in gloves and a helmet, who is at the enterprise, at high-risk objects. The concept of «Industry 4.0» is becoming increasingly popular, the fourth industrial revolution is the unification of industry and digital technologies, leading to the creation of digital production facilities or smart factories and factories. In Europe, this concept is considered to be everything related to digital technologies in the enterprise in a general sense. In Russia, 4.0 is digital products that are somehow connected with hardware. First of all, of course, this is the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), plus a direction related to video analytics, and also a direction called XR (AR + VR). The main task of IIoT is to increase the level of automation in production, reduce the influence of the human factor on the process of managing non-critical technological processes, and reduce the cost of equipment operation. Virtual reality is a model of the surrounding world, artificially created with the help of technical means and presented in digital form. The created effects are projected onto the human consciousness and allow you to experience sensations that are as close to real as possible. The analogues that exist today, developed by large design institutes and companies, have limited access and high cost. The virtual petrochemical production developed within the framework of this project should be a software product containing a production site as close as possible to the real one: technological equipment - columns, heat exchangers, tanks, facilities - pumps, compressors, pipelines, control valves, valves, sensors and actuators. The user, wearing virtual reality glasses and picking up controllers, will have the opportunity to take a tour of the developed production site. The visual series should almost completely correspond to reality, but some details that do not affect the learning process can be simplified so as not to spend a lot of time reproducing them. The use of sound effects that simulate the real sounds of this production will complement the effect of immersion in a virtual reality environment. Aim of research Transfer of the production process of the pentane-hexane fraction separation unit to a virtual reality environment. Methods To create 3d models of the necessary technological equipment, machines, devices, etc., the Autodesk 3ds Max 2015 program was used. Unreal Engine 4 was used to collect the created models into a single scene, as well as to write code for interacting with the virtual reality environment. Results This article discusses the creation of a model of the production process of the pentanehexane fraction separation unit in a virtual reality environment in order to monitor the progress of the technological process and control it through the objects of this production.