Development of a Cost Effective and Reliable Flame-out Protection Unit for Combustion Devices

摘要

A failure of flame in combustion devices is known to be a high risk event. It is observed that low cost safety devices are commercially not available for small-scale or low cost combustion devices. A specifically developed logic, realized using industrially common analog and CMOS devices that can provide the desirable safety environment for a tagged combustion device, is presented here. The design options allow use of different sensors making it selective to the requirements. A wider operational control is managed by introducing two field-tunable time delays. The design covers many relevant parameters that include purging time required for the fuel lines during start-ups and fault tolerance for freak evaluations in flame-outs, making it field worthy. The choice of sensors allows for optimization based on the application criticality or on the cost, a feature significant to make it adaptable to wider spectrum of industrial usage. Alert systems with options for driving external devices are provided for actions involving automation or human attentions. The device is projected to cost typically a small fraction (less than 5%) of the commercially standard ones, and so, is expected to find an extensive potential in applications involving combustion devices, in industrial and rural applications including biomass based renewable energy applications.