Improvement in Temperature stability of salt bath by

upgrading Control Mechanism

By
Shiv Kumar Birtia
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
• Uniformity and stability of temperature is achieved without any deviation.
• 3 times solidification of salt is saved during the process