Project Title:

Background:
Business case:
At Indurating Furnace of Pellet plant, 40 burners (22 numbers for coal tar, 14 numbers for
CO gas and 4 numbers dual ) are used to in preheating and firing zone. The required
temperature in these zones is maintained through controlled firing through these burners.
Ignition Transformer modules are used for firing these burners. Un availability Ignition
Transformer causes outages of the burners. All the 40 burners need to be in service to
maintain optimum temperature profile and rated level of production. Any further failure /
outage of burner leads to proportional reduction of Indurating machine speed which
result in reduced throughput.
2. Current condition & Problem statement

Problem Statement:
There were approximately 25 failures of Ignition Transformers during past one
year leading to outages of burners and reduced throughput on many occasions.
Apart from reduced throughput, the recurring expenditure incurred on account
of spare for replacement of failed imported Ignition Transformers is very high i.e.
Rs. 2.25 Lakhs / unit.

3. Goal Statement

Reduction in failures of Ignition Transformers

 4. Root Cause Analysis
FUNCTIONAL DIAGRAM OF IGNITION TRANSFORMER

Observations on failures:
 4. Root Cause Analysis

Failure Cause Analysis:

Failure Different Causes

Failure of AC Rectifier circuit

Ignition Failure of Control Voltage Generation Circuit

Transformer
Modules
Failure of Spark Time & Control Circuit
failures

Failure of High Voltage Generation Circuit

4. Root Cause Analysis
FAILURE DATA OF FUNCTINAL AREA IN THE IGNITION TRANSFORMER MODULES
 4. Root Cause Analysis

Pareto Chart: NUMBER OF FAILURES

Codes (ID's) in variable: CAUSES OF FAILURES
30

25 100%

20 80%
FROM DIAGRAM
I decided to
15
60.00%
60% analyze failures of
Control voltage
10 40% generation circuit
20.00%
5 20%
12.00%
8.00%

0
Control Vo;tage High Voltage
Generation Circuit Spark Time & Generation Circuit AC Rectifier Circuit
Control Circuit
4. Root Cause Analysis
Failures Analysis of Control voltage generation circuit
 4. Root Cause Analysis
Pareto Chart: NUMBER OF FAILURES
Codes (ID's) in variable: SUB CAUSES
25
Series Regulator
100%
Components failed
20
80%

15 60.87%
60%
Aging of Component Dust
components overheating Accumulation 10
40%

5
21.74% VITAL FEW 20%

8.70%
4.35% 4.35%
Heat sink 0
Heat Sink Heat generation > Ambient Series regulator Ripple in 275 VDC Input supply
Compound components failed Regulator IC link voltage DC link voltage > 220 VAC
Not used Heat dissipation Temp. high
Not used failed / shorted voltage > 275 VDC

Failure of Series Regulator components identified as main cause

Improper rating Heat load >

Of components Specified rating Improper circuit design

Root Cause : Improper circuit design of series regulator

 5. Design of new circuit

Based on above Analysis Alternative – B was found to be the best design alternative

Details of selected design

OUTPUT
INPUT 1. Min. output voltage = 15.5 VDC
1. Input supply – 230 VAC 2. Max. output voltage = 27 VDC
2. Input Current – 10 MA 3. Load regulation = 120 mV
4. Output current 0.50 A

COMPONENT DETAILS SPECIFICATION

Step down transformer Pri volt-230VAC,Sec volt-20vAC,VA-1.5
Bridge rectifier PIV-200V,IF-1A
Filter Capacitor Cap-330UF/35V
Regulator IC IC-7815, I- 1A,Package-TO220
 Details of selected design
C. Interfacing new designed circuit with existing circuit finalized

A Existing circuit Interconnection details

New circuit Existing circuit
terminals terminal
1 A
B 2 B
3 C
4 D

D
Existing circuit
New designed circuit
Risk assessment of designed circuit
and counter measures
SL Risk
No.
1 Existing 12 V regulator may fail in case
of increase in the input 230 VAC supply
2 Back feeding of transient high voltage at
the cathode of existing diode BAW76
which may damage the device
Counter measure taken
An intermediate 15 V regulator IC incorporated
which will not allow voltage to increase beyond
15 V at the input of 12 V existing regulator.
PIV rating of existing BAW 76 diode was
enhanced from 75 V to 200 V using diode
1N4944.
 5. Counter Measure
Implementation plan
A: Removal of old circuit components

Old circuit Old circuit

damaged components
components on removed from
PCB PCB
Implementation plan
B: Fixing of new circuit components
and step down transformer

New circuit
Components installed Fixed Step down
on the board transformer inside
module
 Implementation plan

C: Testing of Ignition transformer modules with new

designed circuit
Test results
C1: Regulator circuit output voltage
Unit Desired Measured Remarks
No output voltage output voltage results
1 15.5 VDC to 27 17.5 VDC OK
V DC
2 17.8 VDC OK
3 18.0 VDC OK
4 17.7 VDC OK
5 17.5 VDC OK
6 17.5 VDC OK
7 17.7 VDC OK
8 17.7 VDC OK
9 18.0 VDC OK

Regulator output voltage 10 17.5 VDC OK

 Implementation plan
A: Testing of Ignition transformer modules with new
designed circuit
C2: Ignition transformer module
output spark voltage Test results
Unit Desired Spark Measured Remarks
No voltage Spark voltage results
1 1280 VDC OK
2 1285 VDC OK
3 1281 VDC OK
1200 VDC to
4 1500 V DC 1290 VDC OK
5 1288 VDC OK
6 1295 VDC OK
7 1280 VDC OK
8 1310 VDC OK
Spark 9 1290 VDC OK
Voltage 10 1305 VDC OK
 6. Confirmation of Effects

Number of failures of Ignition transformers reduced by 84 % after

Implementation.

30
25 GOOD
25 After Implementation

20 Due to
NUMBER

grounding
15
problem
10
5 3
1 0 0 0 0 0
0
BEFO RE

N o v ,13
A u g ,13

D ec,13
S ep ,13

O ct,13

Jan ,14
Ju l,13
IM P L.

NUMBER OF FAILURES
 7. Follow up actions

A: Corrective actions taken for grounding

problem.

B: Created SOP for Repair & Testing the

Ignition transformer module.

C: Made check sheet for Repair & Testing.

D: Trained the people.