Path Planning and Visualizing for Maintenance Simulation of Nuclear Power Plant

Abstract

During the refueling period of a nuclear power plant, the plant needs to be checked and maintained carefully. The maintenance procedure is dangerous to the maintenance personnel because of the radiation in the plant. To train maintenance personnel and decrease the radiation dose received by them, we designed a maintenance simulation system of nuclear power plant by means of virtual reality technology. A virtual nuclear power plant scene which includes equipments, pipes, rooms and virtual maintenance people is built. The activities of the virtual maintenance person are simulated through the three-dimensional (3D) animation technology. The radiation fields in the plant are showed through a color plane rendering method. To find the optimal maintenance path that has the smallest cumulative radiation dose in the radiation environment, an improved ant colony algorithm is proposed. The designed system can help to train the maintenance personnel and to increase the safety of the maintenance procedure of the nuclear power plant.