Session: 02-02-01: Computer-Aided and Simulation Driven Design 1

Paper Number: 166544

Virtual Crane Training- Enhancing Safety and Skill Development in the Steel Industry 

Mastering crane operations is a process that requires precision, experience, and fundamental knowledge of the mechanics involved with the process and tasks involved. These cranes can range depending on the sector they’re being used in, but the range of cranes being operated to pull and move several hundreds of pounds/kilograms at a time, all the way up to tens of tons/metric tons all at the same time. It also tends to be a critical operation with a large amount of energy involved, so there are inherent risks to equipment and human life that need to be respected. Traditional training methods usually involve having a required number of hours of “seat time” under supervision in a crane, usually in the hundreds of hours. While this method is hands on and is effective in training, there are inherent risks involved in high energy systems with inexperienced operators, and in some cases, logistical problems of finding times/locations that are low-impact enough on production to train someone. The project in this discussion looks at how virtual technologies provided through tools and techniques like CAD modeling, microcontrollers, 3D printing, and approximated physics to provide an experience that can get as close as needed to that real-world experience in a crane simulator. The physics-based environment tries to replicate many of the interactions that are needed to really experience what the crane does, and helps to build visual and muscle memory and practice critical thinking when it comes to operation in a safe, controlled, repeatable virtual environment. The Center for Innovation for Simulation and Visualization at Purdue Northwest has many areas of research and development to ironmaking and steelmaking processes, both on the process modeling side, and on the workforce development side, so this type of project seemed to be a natural progression of that body of work. This is a field that has predominantly been more popular in areas like flight simulators, like what Boeing uses for training pilots on their aircraft, or racing vehicle simulators that have been a niche entertainment sector for the last few decades. By using these types of workflows in conjunction with existing training methods, it showcases how designing virtual solutions like this around particular tasks and particular operations can potentially impact safety, learning, and retention. Overall, it shows how training tools like this can serve as effective hands-on training tools together with other training to really help improve the training experience and reinforce learning outcomes.

Presenting Author: Kyle Toth Purdue University Northwest

Presenting Author Biography: Graduated from Purdue Northwest in 2017 with a M.S. Electrical and Computer Engineering. Has since continued to work with the Center for Innovation through Visualization and Simulation (CIVS) as a full-time staff, becoming a senior staff member in 2021. In 2022, took over responsibility for the Safety and Training committee at the CIVS hosted Steel Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Consortium (SMSVC). Primary project research areas include interactive software development, hardware and software compute solutions, data visualization, photography/videography, and training. Currently, has a handful of conference publications as the primary author, but has contributions on over 20 conference and journal papers. Won the grand prize for the AIST Real Steel video contest in 2016 at AISTech, and joining the Safety and Health Technology Committee that year. Currently, serves as the Vice Chair for the SHTC. In addition to the project and research work, also has recently started occasionally teaching a seasonal Computer Science elective for graduate students on interactive software development for industry applications, showcasing situations for software development that are inspired or based on many of the projects that CIVS has worked on over the last decade with our ironmaking/steelmaking collaborators.

Authors:

Rohit Kumar Reddy Kovvuri Purdue University Northwest
Kyle Toth Purdue University Northwest
John Moreland Purdue University Northwest
Chenn Zhou Purdue University Northwest
Jeffery Maxfield U.S. Steel Gary Works
Henry Mitchell Charter Steel