Application possibilities of virtual reality in failure analysis of conveyor belts

Abstract

Failure analysis of conveyor belts is realised using a wide range of the scientific methods. Visualisation of damage plays a very important role in performing of the given failure analysis. Development of the exponential technologies offer a possibility to apply the damage visualisation for analysis of failures in the area of rubber-textile conveyor belts. Virtual reality enables to create an immersive display, what can be very beneficial in the process of failure analysis. The basic idea of this article is to verify whether application of the virtual reality is suitable for purposes of the failure analysis concerning the rubber-textile conveyor belts. Application possibility of the virtual reality will be investigated and presented on example of the failure analysis for a test specimen selected from the damaged conveyor belt. The main task of this analysis is to discover a damage in the conveyor belt specimen, to evaluate this damage and to analyse the damage status of the individual layers creating internal structure of the conveyor belt. At the same time, there is presented in this article a methodology how to realise the failure analysis using a support of the virtual reality. Till now, there is not known any scientific-research work focused on the failure analysis of the conveyor belts, which would be based on the virtual reality. This article emphasizes application possibilities of the virtual reality within the given research area.