FORM 2
THE PATENT ACT 1970
(39 OF 1970)
&
The Patent Rules, 2003
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION
(See Section 10 and Rule 13)
1 TITLE OF THE INVENTION :
AN ELECTRONIC SYSTEM ADAPTED FOR IDENTIFYING CAUSES OF FAILURE OF TURBO-BLOWER.
2 APPLICANT (S)
Name : STEEL AUTHORITY OF INDIA LIMITED.
Nationality : A Govt. of India Enterprise;
Bhilai Steel Plant, Bhilai, State of Chattisgarh,India.
3 PREAMBLE TO THE DESCRIPTION
COMPLETE
The following specification particularly describes the invention and the manner in which it is to be performed.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION:
The present invention relates to an electronic system for detecting the root cause of failure of turbo-blower. More particularly, the invention is directed to a system comprising electronic devices adapted to detect and time stamp the alarms and their sequences of tripping signals, relating to operation and status of performance and efficiency of Power and Blower station in steel plant installed to cater to the need for hot air blast in the blast furnaces using air blast with different air flow and pressure. The system of the invention ensures uninterrupted supply of hot air blast to BFs at desired pressure and flow, by detecting, monitoring and enabling early preventive/corrective action, minimizing breakdown corresponding to any non-critical alarms and also identifying the root cause of any failure/tripping from the historical trend analysis and correlating the same to healthiness and factors involved for the possible failure of the rotating machines such as the turbo-blowers or the turbo-generators due to long use and aging. The system is adapted to read the parallel port control signals and record them in a file for later reference to identify root cause of tripping or historical trending. The system of the present invention is thus capable of providing uninterrupted delivery of hot air blast to BFs at minimum maintenance in a reliable and cost effective manner, by ensuring efficient performance of turbo blowers and supply power to critical utilities from turbo generators and thus improving productivity of BF/utilities.
BACKGROUND ART:
It is well known in the art of iron and steel manufacturing industries that the Blast furnace requires continuous supply of hot air blast at desired temperature, pressure and volumetric flow rate to facilitate the reduction reactions for iron making in Blast furnace operations. Power and Blowing Station (PBS) in large steel plants such as in Bhilai Steel plant provides hot blast to the blast furnaces and dedicated power supply to select consumers/utilities. The non-availability of air blast in desired flow rate leads to stoppage of BF operation and thus loss in productivity.
The turbo blowers are supposed to supply the uninterrupted hot air blast to all BFs with different requirements of air flow and pressure according to respective capacities and operating conditions, which is conventionally achieved through the automatic/semi¬automatic/manual control of process parameters in turbo blowers' operation. There are a
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number of critical as well as non-critical parameter alarms that are generated while controlling the air blasting process in BF. The operators get aware of the corresponding possible breakdown in advance and take the necessary corrective action as and when such alarms occur indicative of a specific diagnostic fault of the system. There are various interlocks provide to trip the Turbo Blowers in order to avoid non recoverable damage of such highly cost intensive equipments. It is also a common experience in the related art that to determine the tripping of the Turbo Blowers (TBs), one should know the sequence of occurrences of alarms with respect to time of tripping to establish a direct correlation to enable preventive/corrective maintenance measures directed to avoid recurrence of such event.
The annunciation system installed for the operators awareness of the status of critical process parameters only gives the present state of alarm/s. The alarms generated are so fast that some times they may go unnoticed and is very difficult to analyze and interpret the real cause of critical alarm. In the event of tripping of any particular TB, the operator provide supply of air blast to the corresponding BF from other TBs in the air blast supply grid. Under such situation, there remain the possibility that the operator does not remember accurately the alarms that are generated and which one caused the Turbo blower to trip. Thus the conventional process and system of control, largely rely on operators' memory regarding a tripping event and the associated cause and its sequence and timing of alarm and thereby runs the risk of manual error, confusion or omission of vital information. The situation becomes even more critical and worsening if the tripping occurs in the night. Further lack of ascertaining any exact reason behind a tripping of particular TB, recurrence of such tripping takes place in course of time. Each of such breakdown of the system results in huge direct and/or indirect financial losses to the plant. In absence of a sequence detector and chronological sequencer logger system, the knowledge on the performance of Turbo blower is not updated/upgraded in the existing system and thereby rendering the life expectancy of turbo blowers unpredictable.
A patent search in the related field identified a prior patent US 3931611 titled "Program event recorder and data processing system" disclosed in its abstract a method and apparatus for program event recording in a data processing system and is used for debugging programs. A program event occurs whenever an address in the data processing system falls within a range between a control lower address (DTCL) and a control upper address (DTCU). The system detects a program event without degrading the system
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performance using carry-lookahead adder structures which implement four inequality relationships.
The above system suffers from the limitation in a sense that it do not use any electronic system for high speed machines such as turboblowers/generators which have inbuilt radio interference source and does not time stamp the data with respect to configurable name/type of alarms. The system of the prior patent only occurrences of five signals . The present invention is capable to detect and record signals relating to alarm/tripping upto 32 in numbers and make use of electronic device that need no A/D conversion at device level and D/A conversion at PC Level which is otherwise required in serial data communication based data loggers.
There has been thus a continuing need to develop an on-line reliable and cost effective system for hot air blast distribution to BFs using high speed turbo blowers, capable of detecting, recording and storing of information relating to alarms for Turbo blower operation, generated in sequence in chronological order and associate and identify the root cause for tripping of a Turbo Blower from trending analysis of such alarm generation by adopting electronic devices involving a micro-controller interfaced with software means to generate logical output of control signals corresponding to alarms for trending and rely on such historical trend data for detecting any possibility of occurrence of tripping and enable preventive measure to ensure uninterrupted supply of hot air blast and thereby improving productivity.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is thus the basic object of the present invention to provide a system comprising electronic device, micro controller, processor and software means of detecting, recording and storing of information relating to alarm generation in turbo blower operation for critical process parameters to control operation and ensure uninterrupted delivery of hot air blast to BF by corrective or preventive action based on trending information and correlating the same with the root cause responsible for alarm sequence leading to tripping.
A further object of the present invention directed to said system wherein an electronic device, comprising the micro controller is used to convert panel annunciation inputs
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relating to critical process parameters generating alarms, to reduce to a lesser number of inputs to be fed to a driver board to further trans form into control signals.
A further object of the present invention directed to said system wherein an electronic device comprising the micro controller used to generate interpretable control signals for any alarm sequence and historical trending, adapted to be processed by a processor interfaced with a customized software.
A still further object of the present invention directed to said system wherein an electronic device comprising the micro controller and processor interfaced with software means, for analyzing control signal at the out put, capable to determine the root cause of tripping from the historical alarms.
A still further object of the present invention directed to said system wherein an electronic device comprising the micro controller and software interfaced processor means, providing online monitoring of process parameters and status thereof indicative of the health of the rotary turbo blower and thereby minimizing breakdowns through early corrective action on non critical alarms and also improving life of rotating turbo blower and the like machines by analyzing the number and sequence of alarms generated over a period of time.
A still further object of the present invention directed to said system wherein an electronic device comprising the micro controller and software interfaced processor means, providing up-gradation of information on behaviour of turbo Blower or turbo generator due to aging.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Thus according to the basic aspect of the present invention there is provided an electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower comprising:
microcontroller based circuitry adapted to take potential free contacts;
a dual pole relay board having potential free contacts;
annuciator unit operatively connected to a potential free contact;
input board having another potential free contact;
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micro-controller board operatively connected to said input board ; selective inputs generated by the micrcontroller board fed to driver board;and control signal pins operatively connected to the output from the driver outputs ;and means to read and record the control signal.
In the above electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower preferably the said input board comprises buffer circuitry.The said microcontroller board is adapted to convert 16inputs into 5 inputs, which are fed to said driver board.
In accordance with another aspect in the electronic system adapted-for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower the said outputs from the driver board are connected to control signal pins of parallel port. Advantageously, the parallel port of PC is logically adapted for outputting to printer means.
Importantly, the parallel port of printer has control signals adapted to collect signals on the status of the printer and theses signals are bi-directional whereas the data pins of the parallel port are unidirectional with output facility.Also, the said control signals are adapted for getting alarms.
Advantageously further the electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower comprise means to read the parallel port control signals and record them in file.
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Also, the system is adapted to detect and time stamp the alarms and its sequences or tripping signals, relating to operation and status of performance and efficiency of Power and Blower station in steel plant.
The details of the invention, its objects and advantages are explained hereunder in greater detail in relation to non-limiting exemplary illustrations as per the following accompanying figures:
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING FIGURE
Figure 1: is a schematic illustration micro controller (B9C51) based Interface module of the system of the invention comprising electronic device for alarm detection and trending using control signals generated and processed through software interfaced processor means.
Figure 2: is the illustration of the Input Board with buffer IC and the Output Board with Driver IC used in the electronic system of the invention.
Figure. 3: is the illustration of the flow chart for Sequence of events recorder in the electronic system of the present invention using block diagram.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION WITH REFRENCE TO THE ACCOMPANYING FIGURE
As already described that for the control of performance of the turbo blowers to supply hot air blast to the BFs, the conventional annunciation system installed for the operator only provides the present state of alarm but do not provide any historical trend of past occurrence and their causes. The reference is first invited to the accompanying Figure 1 of the present invention directed to providing an electronic device having a circuit using micro-controller, which takes the potential free contacts. These potential free contacts are given to dual pole relay board such that one contact goes to represent annunciator unit
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whereas the other contact goes to input board having buffer IC 74245. The accompanying Figure 2 illustrates that the outputs from the Input board goes to micro controller board which converts 16 inputs in to 5 inputs, which in turn is fed to driver board, the outputs from which are connected to control signal pins of parallel port. The parallel port of PC is configured for out put to printer. The parallel port of printer is having control signals that collects the status of printer and these control signals are bi-directional in nature. The accompanying Figure 3 illustrates the entire sequence of events for field sensor based detection of fault/root cause of failure of turbo blower and processor based control by tripping, in the form of a flow diagram using blocks and showing various display means in the electronic system of the invention.
It is thus possible by way of the present invention to provide a system comprising electronic device, micro controller, processor and software means of detecting, recording and storing of information relating to alarm generation in turbo blower operation for critical process parameters to control operation and ensure uninterrupted delivery of hot air blast to BF by corrective or preventive action based on trending information and correlating the same with the root cause responsible for alarm sequence leading to tripping. Advantageously in the above system micro controller is used to convert panel annunciation inputs relating to critical process parameters generating alarms, to reduce to a lesser number of inputs to be fed to a driver board to further trans form into control signals.More importantly the system would favour generation of interpretable control signals for any alarm sequence and historical trending, adapted to be processed by a processor interfaced with a customized software.
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WE CLAIM:
1. An electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower
comprising:
microcontroller based circuitry adapted to take potential free contacts;
a dual pole relay board having potential free contacts;
annuciator unit operatively connected to a potential free contact;
input board having another potential free contact;
micro-controller board operatively connected to said input board ;
selective inputs generated by the micrcontroller board fed to driver board;and
control signal pins operatively connected to the output from the driver outputs ;and
means to read and record the control signal.
2. An electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower as claimed in claim 1 wherein said input board comprises buffer circuitry.
3. An electronic system adapted for identifying, causes of failure of Turbo-Blower as claimed in anyone of claims 1 or 2 wherein said microcontroller board is adapted to convert 16inputs into 5 inputs. Which are fed to said driver board.
4. An electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower as claimed in anyone of claims 1 to 3 wherein said outputs from the driver board are connected to control signal pins of parallel port.
5. An electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower as claimed in anyone of claims 1 to 4 wherein the parallel port of PC is logically adapted for outputting to printer means.
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6. An electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower as claimed in claim 5 wherein the parallel port of printer has control signals adapted to collect signals on the status of the printer and theses signals are bi-directional whereas the data pins of the parallel port are unidirectional with output facility.
7. An electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower as claimed in anyone of claims 1 to 6 wherein said control signals are adapted for getting alarms.
8. An electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower as claimed in anyone of claims 1 to 7 adapted to read the parallel port control signals and record them in file.
9. An electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower as claimed in anyone of claims 1 to 8 adapted to detect and time stamp the alarms and its sequences or tripping signals, relating to operation and status of performance and efficiency of Power and Blower station in steel plant.
10. An electronic system adapted for identifying causes of failure of Turbo-Blower substantially as hereindescribed and illustrated with reference to the accompanying figure.

Dated this 5th day of May,2008 Anjan Sen
Of Anjan Sen & Associates (Applicants Agent)
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