Using virtual reality to support the product's maintainability design: Immersive maintainability verification and evaluation system

Maintainability is an important characteristic of complex products. Good maintainability design can save substantial costs and reduce incidents and accidents throughout the product life cycle. Therefore, maintainability should be given full consideration in the early design stages. However, the current desktop tools are not effective to aid in maintainability design. Virtual reality (VR), a state-of-the-art of computer science, generates a virtual environment in which the user can have intuitive feelings and interact with virtual objects. In this paper, an immersive maintainability verification and evaluation system (IMVES) based on virtual reality is proposed. The goal of the system is to develop a cost-effective, rapid and precise method to improve the maintainability design in the early design stages. IMVES enables the user to interact with maintenance objects and conduct immersive simulations. Based on the developed methods, the data generated during simulation can be gathered to analyze the maintainability status. A case study applying IMVES into an aero-engine project is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the system. Compared with desktop-based methods, the IMVES could provide a more efficient way to conduct a maintenance simulation. Furthermore, the credibility and objectivity of the maintainability evaluation are also improved.