Subject: IAEC- 2 Incident report dated 09.02.

2024
At about 10:57 A.M. on the 9th of February, 2024 the incident of boiler smoke tube chamber door open
of IAEC-2 was reported. On receipt of the information operations and instrumentation team reported at
site and found the door above the burner 1 was in open condition.

Following are the observation:

 IAEC Boiler -2 was under hot stand by with parameters as Steam pressure – 9.5 kg/cm2, drum level -
65%, other parameters normal.
 Instructions received from COGEN C/R at 10:38 Hrs to start IAEC-2 are as follows :
1. 10:40 Both FD (20-X-FD-201-B1@B2) were started.
2. 10:42 Gas line was charged from battery limit.
3. 10:44 Field round taken by operator and ensured everything is normal. All the parameters on
the HMI was also normal.
4. 10:45 Purge cycle started (Gas Pressure at PT6B – 1350mmW C , PSL-1B normal, PSH-1B
normal.)
5. 10:50 boiler purge cycle completed and boiler start interlock got normalised.
6. 10:51 First trail taken, boiler tripped on flame failure. Purge cycle started again
7. 10:56 Purge cycle completed, boiler “ready to start” interlock normalised on HMI.
8. 10:56 Boiler start command given from HMI. Immediately after 2-3 second , huge abnormal
sound happened in boiler smoke tube chamber(2nd to 3 rd part) which led to opening of smoke
tube chamber.
9. Boiler was tripped and gas line was isolated immediately by the operators.

Actual Site condition observed :

 Boiler smoke tube chamber was found opened in burner-1. Brick lining / refractory was
observed damaged.
 Both the FD fan damper inspection covers were found opened.
 IBR parts and all the auxiliaries were found intact.

Following activities were carried out by Instt Team:

 Alarm logs and trends were analyzed to know the root cause of the incident.
 System health check was done and found no active alarms in the control system.
 Purge cycle operation was checked, purging happened for 5 minutes as per the logic.
 Air damper of both the burners –A &B were operational and working as per requirement.
 During the cycle air damper limit switch feedback of open and close position was healthy.
 Further inspection of fuel gas line was carried out. Pressure after the regulator was found to be
1350 mm WC as per the set point.

Simulated and checked the following :

 Vent valve (SV-2B) operation was checked and found satisfactory.
 First shut down valve SV-1B was opened and found pressure after second shut down valve SV-
3B shot up to 1000mm WC which indicated that the valve SV-3B could be passing.
 On further checking of second shut down valve SV-3B valve, it was found that valve was not
passing but plunger of the SOV was not seated completely due to water ingress (carried with
instrument air) leading to inadvertent leaking of air to main gas valve actuator.
 Remedial action has been taken and SOV of both the shutdown valves SV-1B and SV-3B have
been changed and their operations were checked and found to be ok.
Recommendation/review:

 Manual isolation after gas line vent valve should always be in open position, as during any
emergency the gas pressure should be released to the flare, as of now manual isolation valve
has to be closed as it is also linked to the same.
 Standard SOP should include monitoring the gas pressure after the main valve SV-3B by boiler
proficiency before starting the boiler and similar incident in future can be avoided.
 Currently Pilot line is taken from the tapping between SV-1B and SV-3B. This leads to
dependability on the single shut down valve SV-3B , failure of which will cause main fuel
burner to come in line along with the pilot line. Pilot line should be taken from the tapping
before the shutdown valve SV-1B and the valve SV-1B and SV-1C will open after the pilot
flame is proved. This will reduce the vulnerability in the system and single point reliability.