USE OF VIRTUAL REALITY IN MACHINERY SAFETY EDUCATION

Machinery safety is becoming an important and integral element of machine construction. In addition to the moral obligation to protect and maintain the health of their workers, the topic of machine safety is also a question of financial sense for the operating company and machine operator. In order to successful acquiring knowledge in area of machinery safety for engineering students it is necessary to adopt elementary principles associated with risk assessment. Risk assessment includes risk analysis (identification of possible hazards, estimation of the risk of each identified hazard), evaluation of each individual risk and risk reduction. Engineering students need to practical training to supplement their learning process. As it is usually dangerous to operate a machine, traditional approach is that students have to watch passively while the lecturer carries out different working activities. In order to improve of educational practice in this context, we see solution in the use of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies. This paper presents a review of existing virtual environment-based training applications in area of machinery safety and conceptual design of VR simulation model for identification of hazards associated with woodworking machine using.