Drilling mud serve as lubricant that keep the drilling bit operate smooth. The consequence of drill bit overworked by temperature heading up will lead to hard work of engine and transmission that lead to breakdown and halt the whole operation. It is a very costly operation halt that leads cost of extra ten thousand of dollars and more. Plus, the drilling fluid is also a very costly lubricant and to keep the drilling cost under control, solids control machinery is need for filter the debris that contain in the drilling mud for many times of cycle of use the drilling mud. The 5 filtration machineries that will completely perform filter the solids from the drilling mud are shale shaker, vacuum degasser, Mud Gas Separator, desander, desilter and decanter centrifuge.
The filter step goes in below:
Shale shaker
The drilling mud feed enter the feeding box of shale shaker. The mud contains various size of the solids return to the ground surface and shale shaker is filtering the biggest solid by use high G force of shaking. The box of shale shaker contain panels of mesh screen that is different number of mesh depend on solids contents analyze by drilling mud engineer
. The muds that return to ground surface not only contain solids but also gas from the earth core. This gas that change density of drilling mud leads result change the viscosity of drilling mud. Vacuum degasser removes the gas in the drilling mud to keep the mud in balance and continue the future solids filter process.
The drilling fluids now that contain medium size solids enter the liquid feeding pump and enter the desander, which contain large hydrocyclone(s). The solids diameter above 40-60um will be filtered and bottom of desander is pair with shale shaker contain finer mesh compare with first shale shaker to complete the filtering. T
Desilter
This machinery’s function of work is just as same like desander in last step before. It contains multiple smaller hydrocyclones that can remove solids that measure diameter above 15-40um. It is also pair with shale shaker like desander and completes this step of filtering.
Decanter Centrifuge
The drilling fluid feed through centrifugal pump that feed into decanter centrifuge that rotate in High speed of G force. The rotating bowl will separate solids from the mud and exit in one for solids and other one is for filtered mud. The drilling mud now will feed back to the rig for next cycle of usage.