Boiler Safety Audit and Control System Inspection
A boiler safety and control system
inspection and audit should be performed annually to insure there is no chance of damage or even worse loss of life. The boiler safety system is often referred to as the burner management system and operates separately from the control system or combustion control. A safety inspection and audit consists of performing operational trip tests and recording the results. Records should at minimum contain whether or not the safety device actually tripped the boiler and was there proper annunciation to describe why it tripped. Each safety device tied to the burner management system is called an interlock and has two functions that should be tested. The first is the wiring and control system, the second is the process that it measures and whether it is functioning and adjusted properly. It is possible to adjust an interlock so far out of the process that it is supposed to be monitoring that it performs no function at all.
It is common for operators to, after experiencing a series of boiler trips, wrongly assume a certain interlock is causing trips and adjust it so far out of range that it is not working at all. As previously suggested, this is why it is so important to have all of your
interlocks calibrated and trip checked to verify operation.
A boiler control system inspection is also very important and rarely performed. The control system or combustion control system has one interlock tied to the burner management. This interlock allows the combustion control system to trip the boiler if an unsafe condition occurs. Fully metered combustion control systems have this interlock and typically trip the boiler for the following reasons:
-Fuel to Air Set Point Deviation
-Fuel Flow Transmitter signal Bad Quality
-Air Flow Transmitter signal Bad Quality
Most other transmitter quality failures will simply throw the corresponding control loop in to manual mode and alarm the operator.
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