This project is to provide the AECL head office with a simulation of the CANDU 6 nuclear reactor in New Brunswick, Canada. This simulation includes a complete 3D engineering model of the reactor with a mockup of the surrounding area. It also includes a real-time fly-through from the exterior of the plant through the airlock and the containment doors that finishes with a panoramic view of the calandria face in the heart of the complex.

Additional simulations will include the complete retooling of a single calandria tube, the cleaning process of a robotic arm within the tower boilers, movement of the bridge carriage and fueling machine for the calandria tubes and the compacting process for the disposal of a tube.

The simulation will be presented at the Immersion Studio in the SCAET building of Sheridan College, Trafalgar Campus.

Technology:

The simulation of the CANDU 6 nuclear reactor will be displayed on three 10'2" x 7'7" screens using three high-resolution (1280 x 1024), front projection systems. Three computer video signals are provided through the SGI Onyx2 InfiniteReality2, scalable visualization supercomputer, located in Visualization Design Institute on the fourth floor of the SCAET building.

The application was developed in C with SGI OpenGL Performer. OpenGL Performer is a comprehensive programming interface for creating real-time visual simulations. It offers high-performance rendering, multi-processing and multiple graphics pipelining in order to maximize the performance of 3D graphics applications.

The CANDU 6 simulation is configured and synchronized with 15 processes and 3 graphics pipes. Many computer software applications were used for creating 3D models, converting data formats, and porting the engineering data to real-time 3D models. The applications most commonly employed for this project were Technomatix Robcad, Okino PolyTrans/Nugraf, Rational Reducer, and Alias|Wavefront Maya.