Guideline Centrifugal Pump Selection and Piping Design For Mud System

The purpose of this article is to present some guidelines and simplified techniques to size pumps and piping typically used in mud systems. If unusual circumstances exist such as unusually long or complicated pipe runs or if very heavy or viscous drilling muds are used, a qualified engineer should analyze the system in detail and calculate an exact solution.

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Evaluate The Efficiency Of Solids Control Equipment

The volume and type of solids in a drilling mud system can adversely affect mud properties, reduce penetration rates, cause damage to drilling equipment, and increase total drilling costs. Efficiency controlling the solids content of the mud system is an important phase of an efficient and cost-effective drilling program. The three basic methods of removing solids are dilution and/or displacement of whole mud, settling and mechanical solids-control equipment.

Fig 1. Size capacity and operating of solids control equipment

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DECANTER CENTRIFUGE DEAL SOLIDS IN DRILLING FLUIDS

Stokes’ Law and Drilling Fluids

Drilling fluids normally contain two categories of solids: (1) commercial clays and drilled solids, both low gravity, with specific gravities (SGs) of about 2.6, and (2) weighting agents, usually barite, with an assumed SG of 4.2. If all of the solids particles were of the same size, decanter centrifuges could be used to separate the weighting agent from the low-gravity solids, because the barite particles, due to their higher SG, would be heavier. Drilling fluids, of course, are not slurries of particles of equal size. Weighted drilling fluids always contain solids of both categories, ranging from colloidal particles too fine to settle, even in pure water, to particles 70 microns () in size and larger. Consequently, the centrifuge cannot separate barite from low-gravity solids. What it does, when operated properly, is separate larger barite particles from smaller ones and larger low-gravity-solids particles from smaller ones. Failure to recognize this very important fact frequently leads to the misuse of centrifuges.

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