Furnace Safeguard Supervisory System (FSSS)

Basic Concept of operation of FSSS

FSSS, is an independent and discreet digital logic system

for safety and protection during starting, shut down, low
load and emergency conditions. It does not take part in
the regular station operation like combustion control
which sends out continuous analogue signal to maintain
combustion rate at optimum value to match the demand on
the boiler.

Air and fuel are admitted on elevation basis located at the

corners of the furnace and arranged to fire tangentially at
the centre of the furnace.

Ignitors are provided at appropriate locations to fire

directly across the line of admission of the oil stream.

Optical flame scanners are strategically located at different

levels.

Wide angle flame scanners monitor the flame in the

furnace as single entity.

Fuel air and auxiliary air dampers are continuously

modulated to distribute the incoming air for optimum firing
conditions.
Functions of FSSS

The furnace safeguard supervisory system has been

designed to provide increased safety, reliability, flexibility
and overall performance of the Boiler. This consists of the
following:

a) Furnace Purge Supervision: Which has interlocks for

scanners, purge airflow, drum level, and all fuel.

b) Secondary air damper control (SADC) : To automatically

maintain wind box furnace
differential, regulate air to the fuel compartment and
control the secondary air dampers.

c) Ignitor control supervision : Which has interlocks for ignitor

flame, furnace purge, ignition fuel pressure and ignitor tip valve
position.

d) Heavy Oil Control and Supervision: Which has remote and

manual start/stop. It includes interlocks for heavy oil
pressure and temperature, oil gun valve
positions, ignitor – energy, atomising differential pressure, and
Iocal maintenance switches.

e) Mill and Feed control and Supervision: Which has

automatic operation from a
single operator start-stop switch for each mill.
Individual switches are also provided for the
operator to control each mill. It also includes
interlocks for ignition energy, primary air-shut off gate
 position, mill outlet temperature and proper mill start-
stop procedure.

e) Flame scanners intelligence and checking: Includes

automatic checking of each scanner, scanner counting
networks and scanner cabinet.

g) Overall boiler flame failure protection: During light up

and low load operation.

h) Boiler trip protection which shuts down all fuel in the

following events :
i) Both emergency trip buttons pushed
ii) Loss of all fuel.
hi) Turbine trip.
iv) Air flow less than a minimum pre-set value(30%)
v) Tripping of BOTH FD/ID Fans.
vi) Loss of flame.
Design Features of FSSS:

The system is a digital control relay logic system of

electro-magnetic components. Even though the system
is basically relay logic, the flame scanner system and
coal system is functionally divided into unit logic, elevation
logic and comer logic.

The unit logic supervises the overall furnace

conditions and monitors all critical parameters of the
fuel system, carries out furnace purge and examines all
the preconditions required for safe warm-up prior to the
main fuel admission during normal operation of the boiler,
the unit logic continuously monitors the critical feed backs
to ensure safety and will trip all fuel within the pre-set time
limit on abnormal conditions. Removal of elevation fuel in
programmed manner would be initiated by the unit logic in
response to load demand signal. If, however, by
decreasing fuel demand the firing condition approaches
the point of unstable operation, additional ignitor support
energy can be automatically initiated. Besides, unit logic
also provides intelligence to the operator on the overall
status of furnace conditions and alerts the operator
through alarm for correctness of operation at the appropriate
time.

The elevation logic is an intermediate logic which

depends on the operator or the unit
logic for initiations of start or stop actions. This also
provides essential preconditions
and trip commands to corner logic as necessary depending
upon the type of fuel, fired.
For example if the elevation logic is designed for a
pulverised fuel, the logic elements
will be designed to suit that particular type of pulveriser and
its associated equipment
like feeder, hot air gate, etc. Also since the pulveriser
outlet directly feeds the coal
nozzles in the four corners without any remote shut off
devices for each comer, there
will not be any corner logic for this fuel. However, in
case of oil firing, the comer
sequencing, etc, are performed by the respective elevation
logic taken by it.

The Comer logic depends on the elevation logic

commands for initiation of an action.
During manual operation the corner logic complete its
own permissives based on
ignition energy availability status of various corner
devices and other factors for
sequencing of individual fuel, air, or steam valve operations.
In addition, in case of oil
firing, this logic performs an oil scavenging cycle before
the gun is allowed to be
retracted. However, emergency trip signals originating in
unit logics and transmitted via
elevation logic will bypass corner permissive logic and
cause immediate shut down of
the unit.

The logic system is designed to operate on A.C. and D.C.

power supplies.
A.C.power supply is backed up by power taken from
another A.C source.(Two A.C.Sorces). The change over
from one A.C. supply to another takes place within 0.5
seconds.
In case of loss of A.C., the trip function is accomplished
by D.C logic components-where a fuel trip valve or a coal
pulverizer is tripped by D.C power.
But if loss of D.C is detected, the signal is relayed directly
to the elevation logics because the unit logic trip is on
D.C and therefore, ineffective. In such a case, the corner
fuel oil supply valves are closed, or the coal feeder stopped
by A.C. power.
The “loss of power” - trip is delayed by two seconds to
allow for over-riding power dips and transients of short
duration.

The components used in the logic system include

pneumatic timers with on and off delay, latch relays,
control relays, etc. Latch relays are extensively used as
retentive memory circuits so as to minimise the power
consumption of the logic panel and, at the same time
increase the life of the components.
The power distribution is on an elevation basis and includes
monitoring facilities.

Arrangement of FSSS

The FSSS basically consists of the following major parts.

a) Logic cabinet. b) Console insert.

c) Secondary air damper control. d) Mill panel.
e) Field equipment. f) Interface equipment.
Logic Cabinet The heart of the system is this logic cabinet
which includes all the logic hardware. For a typical relay
logic system, this includes the control relays, latch relays,
time delay relays, programme timers, flame scanner
amplifier system, panel distribution and miniature circuit
breakers or fuses, all pre-winded to terminal blocks.

Console Insert The console insert contains all the push

buttons and indicating lamps
illuminated push-buttons of miniature type are used to
reduce the size of the console
insert.

Secondary air damper control Figure shows the wind box

assembly of a corner of a typical tangentially fired boiler
which consists of a number of dampers located at various
elevations of fuel compartments and dampers in
between the fuel compartments. These dampers are
required to modulate as a function of certain process
variables.

The various dampers are divided into two main classes

depending on the type of modulation they are required to
perform.

Those dampers which regulate air surrounding a fuel

compartment are termed 'Fuel Air Dampers' whereas
those dampers which regulate air adjacent to a fuel
compartment are termed "Auxiliary Dampers"

Main philosophy of control is that auxiliary air dampers

are modulated to maintain a fixed differential pressure
between the wind box and the furnace, whereas the fuel
air dampers are modulated in proportion to the rate
of fuel fired in that elevation. The auxiliary air dampers
in all elevation and corners are group-controlled in
proportion to the wind box furnace differential pressure.

Whereas the fuel air dampers of all four corners of one

elevation are group-controlled in proportions of the rate of
fuel fired in that elevation.
Mill panel: Raw coal from the bunker
is fed to the mill through the raw coal
feeder. The flow or lack of flow of coal
to the mill is monitored to give an
alarm when there is no coal flowing to
the mill and also when there are other
interlocks. The Coal Flow Alarm
performs this.

Field Equipment: Under the above

heading, we have the field mounted
shut off devices and signal
transmitters.

The field mounted shut off devices include:

a) Nozzle valves.
b) Header trip Valves.
c) Gun advance/retract mechanism
d) Pulveriser discharge valve.
e) Hot Air gate.
f) Secondary air damper drive
g) Ignitor cabinet.
h) Flame scanner head assembly.
i) Local gun maintenance switch box.
J) Signal initiating devices.