Safety training in construction site using VR-technology

Virtual reality (VR) technology is rapidly entering many fields, such as industry, medicine, art, tourism, and education. One common challenge for construction safety training is the lack of means to create high-fidelity digital environments to simulate and support required safety operations and assessments. Traditional workforce training and field safety data analysis methods often need to be revised to help students grasp the true complexity of construction operation and use, which could significantly impact the quality of future construction and safety training tasks. This article describes how virtual reality technology is used in education, mainly to teach labor protection in training courses for construction engineers, and the future trends. Safety is a critical issue for the construction industry. The literature argues that human error contributes to more than half of occupational incidents and could be directly impacted by effective training programs. This paper reviews the current safety training status using VR at the Ikh Zasag International University. Results from the review evidence the gap between the status and industry expectations on safety. To narrow this gap, this paper demonstrates the development and utilization of a training program based on virtual reality (VR) simulation. The VR-based safety training program can offer a safe working environment where users can effectively rehearse tasks with fire hazards and ultimately promote their fire cognition and intervention abilities. Its visualization and simulation can also remove the training barriers caused by electricity’s features of invisibility and dangerousness.