Improvement in Temperature stability of salt

bath at Su 30 Heat Treatment shop by upgrading

Control Mechanism

By
Shiv Kumar Birtia
Manager Maintenance
Sukhoi Engine Division,Koraput
What is salt bath process?

• A heat treatment process in which molten salts are used as a medium for transfer of heat to the job.
• Works on principle of Ohms law
• Operating range from 350 -1300 degree C.
• Operating range depends up on composition of salt.
Advantage and Disadvantage
Advantage of Salt bath process:

• Excellent temperature uniformity

• Good heat transfer rate of heat to the job.
• Since job is immersed in salt, oxidation and discoloration of part is minimum.

Disadvantage of salt bath

• Salt used are highly corrosive.

• Hazardous fumes are generated during process.
• Starting of salt bath takes lot of effort.
• If salt solidify for any reason it is very difficult to restart the process
Issues in Salt bath
• The furnace was running on ON/OFF control mechanism
 Problem with ON/OFF Control Mechanism
• The process temperature is not stable.
• Little offset due to process noise will drive furnace to non useful range.
• Continuous switching results higher failure rate of electrical components.
• Salt solidification frequency was high.
• Breakdown time was more.
Solution

PID control Mechanism with Power Electronics

PID control Mechanism
• The feed back is compared with set value to generate error signal.
• Error signal is passed through PID loop to Give control signal
• Power proportional to control signal is delivered to salt bath furnace.
Tuning of PID gains
Conclusion
Cost of implementation

• Power controller 150 KW: Rs 70,000.00

• PID controller: Rs 9,000.00
• Alarm system: Rs 2,000.00

Results
• The modified system is running since April 2018,
• Uniformity and stability of temperature is achieved without any deviation.
• 3 times solidification of salt is saved during the process