The decanter centrifuge works on a principle of heavy solids settling , with the “ G “ force number by centrifugal force , the solids particle will be settling down and discharge and fluids content over flow to the other end to reach fine solids separation application . You can look at the centrifuge bowl to understand the principle of decanter centrifuge. The solids in the drilling mud will settle to the bottom of centrifuge bowl by centrifugal force, if you want to speed the settling process, you can reduce the height of the centrifuge bowl, which means, you need make centrifuge bowl diameter smaller to reduce solids settling time. If you want to keep the centrifuge bowl diameter, you can increase the centrifuge length to allow solids settling longer time.
In the drilling mud solids control system, different size and density solids will get different settling speed because centrifuge principle separation by centrifugal force. The centrifuge can supply a kind of method to increase the settling force for suspended solids in drilling mud. The decanter centrifuge can separate solids particles 2 – 10 microns size range.
The decanter centrifuge is horizontal steel bowl with rotating speed from 1600 RPM to 4000 RPM depending on bowl diameter and design. The dual centrifuge system , the first centrifuge unit will be using for separate barite particles and it will be return to the drilling mud , the second set high speed decanter centrifuge will be using to separate fine solids than barite to lower drilling mud density.