JOHOR BAHRU, 12 May – An official session was held where the Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering (FKT), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), was awarded two sets of Virtual Reality (VR) tools for teaching process safety to chemical engineering undergraduates. The project was led by Assoc. Prof. Ir. Dr. Jully Tan from Monash University Malaysia and included two other members: Assoc. Prof. Ir. Dr. Mimi Haryani Hassim (Leader of the Safety and Health Research Group at UTM) and Prof. Dr. Kathleen Aviso from De La Salle University, Philippines. This project was also supported by the industry, with Fluor Daniel, Inc. Manila, and Petronas Gas Fertilizer Kerteh providing detailed input on how the tool can be further improved following the demonstration session of the trial set. They reviewed whether the plant and process scenarios presented in the tool, including the design and visual illustrations, dimensions, control room, and PPE room, accurately depicted a realistic process plant.
The project began in 2021 and was funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, United Kingdom, under the Engineering Skills Where They Are Most Needed – Impact Grants award, with a grant amount of £49,871.00.
To ensure the tool is relevant and meets the learning outcomes for the process safety course, it was demonstrated at all three participating universities. The first demo was conducted at De La Salle University, Manila, on 20-21 February 2024. The second demo was at Monash University Malaysia on 15-16 April 2024, and finally at UTM on 12 May 2024. Both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as lecturers from the chemical engineering department, participated in using the VR tool, experiencing a series of HAZOP-related scenarios and probing questions designed by the project’s researcher, Mr. Koay Kang Hao (currently pursuing his Masters related to the project). The aim of this tool is to assist students in learning HAZOP and process safety in a more effective, interactive, and realistic manner rather than through theoretical methods practiced so far. With the aid of the tool, students can experience walking through the plant like real engineers, see actual unit operations, piping, and auxiliary equipment such as pumps and different types of valves, and manually climb up the vessel. They can even hear the pump running and cavitating, the sound of gas release, and feel the real height when climbing the tower. This is part of the ‘plant familiarization’ feature of the tool. Students can perform several actions, such as turning on a valve, checking if the solenoid of the valve is magnetized, testing with a sensor for gas leakage at the valve, and performing more structured process control actions as part of their HAZOP and process safety study. Students can also experience catastrophic process safety incidents such as vessel rupture due to overpressure, loss of containment due to overflowing or flange leakage, and the use of an emergency shower due to chemical spillage contacting the skin. Before entering the plant, students must go to the PPE room and put on suitable PPE as per safety procedures. An interesting additional feature of the VR tool is that it provides students with access to the SCADA system (an online/automated process control system used in petrochemical plants) and the piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) of the process. This allows students to refer to the SCADA and P&ID documents while maneuvering through the physical plant to further understand the process in-depth, especially when solving the set of questions given.
After each demo session, students were required to fill out a simple feedback form to share their experiences using the tool. This feedback will be used to further improve the tool. Overall, the project was successful in achieving its objective of developing a VR tool to enhance chemical engineering students’ learning of process safety. Additionally, students had the opportunity to experience being in a real process plant. Not all students have the chance to do their internship in chemical-based plants, and such experiences are crucial in preparing them for the actual working world once they graduate. The tool will be demonstrated to a wider audience, reaching out to academics from other universities in Malaysia beyond the three project members, in two upcoming events. The first is a one-day workshop organized by the IChemE Education Special Interest Group in Kuala Lumpur on 12 July 2024, a day after the SOMChE 2024 conference. The second will be in Penang, organized by the IEM and IChemE, on 5 August 2024 as a pre-conference workshop for the PSE Asia 2024 conference. As a member of this project, UTM is grateful to receive the VR tool for free. It is highly hoped that the tool will be well-utilized in the process safety course and help students learn process safety better. This effort also aligns with UTM’s significant focus on Artificial Intelligence, as evidenced by the recent launch of the Faculty of Artificial Intelligence (FAI) by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, YAB Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
