Railway Engineering Experimental Teaching Research Based on the Combination of Field Experiment and Virtual Reality (VR) Technology——Taking Central South University as an Example

Abstract

At present, rail transit is developing rapidly in the world, and this means new and changing requirements for the training of talents in railway engineering experiments. Given the current problems of limited laboratory/field instruments for railway engineering experimentsand the safety/administrative difficulties of going to the frontline of railway lines to teach railway engineering experiemnts in the field, the Department of Railway Engineering of Central South University tried to introduce virtual reality (VR) technology to teach students experiments in the field of railway engineering. Through the virtualized experimental methods, students can carry out railway engineering experiments such as; vehicle wheel pair off-axis experiments, track geometry and position detection, etc by immersive means. It was observed that after performing virtual simulation experiments, students appeared conversant in subsequent field experiments. Thus, VR greatly improves the teaching efficiency of railway engineering experiments.