Tag Archives: Solids Control

How to Operate on a Vacuum Pump to Its Best

As is known to all, a vacuum pump is a powerful pump which is suitable for different applications. Because it can transfer material with large particles or large solids content, it is also called a solids pump. It is fully air-driven by connecting to an air compressor. The working principal is to suck in the material with the negative force and push the material out with a positive force.

If it is operated in correct method, it can reach a quite ideal performance. Here are some tips:

1. Suitable air supply for the vacuum pump:

There are 2 requests to meet for the air compressor: pressure between 0.6~0.8 Mpa, and a large enough air volume.
In some cases, although the air compressor can produce an air pressure of 0.6 Mpa or above, during operation, reading on pressure guage is only 0.4 or 0.5Mpa.
This problem could be solved by reducing the air hose length from air compressor to the pump, or using a larger diameter air hose.
Another option is an air container. Since the ideal operating air pressure should be stable around some value between 0.6 to 0.8 MPa. In some cases, when the air supply from an air compressor is not stable, you can use an air container matching to the air compressor. It is located in between the compressor and pump.

2. Time setting for loading and discharging:
For both loading and discharging, there is a time range from 0 to 30 seconds. This time setting can be adjusted during operating, which depends on many factors including material character, distance, pipe diameter and etc.
For example, if the sucking time is set at 25 seconds, and when pump is sucking, at first the material goes quite quickly, then it slows down gradually.
When the material moving nearly stops, the pump is almost full. You read the time and you can set the sucking time accordingly.
During discharging, make sure the material is fully pushed out from the discharging hose. Don’t leave heaps of material to stop at half. In that case, it will hinder the later sucking and discharging.
You can contact GN Solids Control, the vacuum pump manufacturer, for more information.

How to Choose Suitable Mud Tank Volume for Diamond Core Drilling and Geothermal Drillings

As is common sense for all kinds of drillings: 1, Drilling mud should be invited into drilling procedure, 2. The drilling mud should be treated after the drilling procedure, considering both economy reason and environment protection.
Well, do you know how to choose a suitable tank volume for such diamond core drilling and geothermal drillings? Here we have some tips and useful sequences to follow:

1. The required mud flow should be determined according to the drilling structure and drilling tool type;
2. Select the appropriate mud pump for the core drilling or geothermal drilling rigs.
3. Fully take consideration of required drilling rate and the time needed to prepare the mud.
4. Take into consideration of the solids control system (the mud separation equipment)’s recycling speed, including the rock powder carrying rate. This factor does affect the needed mud tank volume quite a lot.
5. Also consider the normal circulating mud volume, cross slurry distribution capacity and reserve mud capacity;
6. On the premise of meeting all above mentioned factors, try to select a smaller reserve coefficient, in order to reduce the amount of mud, which will also reduce the treatment capacity of waste mud.

What solids control equipment is always needed in such drilling projects?
A diamond core boring or geothermal drilling always need a comparably smaller mud recycling system comparing with other drilling like oil and gas or even HDD. Such mud systems are always more compact, with only necessary and efficient equipment.
A shale shaker is a must, cause shale shaker always removes the most solids from the drilling cuttings. In order to save space without sacrificing separating capacity, operators prefer to use a double deck shale shaker at this stage. And after the shale shaker, there should be a desilter and a decanter centrifuge, among which, the desilter is optional while centrifuge is preferred.
Welcome to contact GN Solids Control engineer team for a more complete solution.

How to Choose a Suitable Mud Tank System

Unless the old type of crude oil explorations as shown in the movie <There Will Be Blood>, in modern times, the drillings are much gentler and it takes care of environment very well. And this can attribute to the employment of solids control system. The solids control system can help to remove the solids particles generated from drilling and also return the expensive drilling fluids back to the drilling procedure

For confirming the specifications of a mud tank system, here are several steps:

1st, to confirm the volume of mud tanks, there are several points to be taken into consideration:
1.1 the drilling structure, the drilling mud replenishment when tool is lifted or the overflow when the tool is lowered during drilling
1.2 the mud pump’s rated displacement volume.
1.3 the drilling speed of the project, especially the drilling speed of large-diameter topsoil;
1.4 the well bore’s complexity should be taken into consideration, for example, whether there is lost circulation and blowout risk, or whether it is necessary to reserve a variety of mud;
1.5 the type of drilling mud used and speed of drilling mud preparation.

2nd， How to define the minimum drilling mud volume used for oil and gas drilling.

2.1 international API method 1: well bore volume with 100 barrels added. One barrel in the US system is about 158.97 liters in the metric system, and 100 barrels is about 16 cubic meters.
2.2 international API method 2: Daily footage (well barrel volume) ‘s five or 6 times. The coefficient is usually 5.5.
2.3 international API method 3: maximum circulating capacity of mud pump multiplied by 0.618. The unit of maximum circulating capacity of mud pump is m3 / min. this calculation method mainly considers that bubbles in drilling fluid can fully overflow the liquid level, and the calculated result is the liquid level area (unit: m2).
2.4 domestic method 1 in China : well barrel volume * 1.5 ~ 2.0. with common coefficient as 1.75.
2.5 domestic method 2 in China: nominal drilling depth of drilling rig ÷ (20 ~ 22) * 130%. The common coefficient is 21.

Hope the knowledge we shared is useful for your work.

Three Oil Rig Drilling Waste Management Equipment for Nigeria Drilling Company

Just recently, GN has delivered three complete sets of oil rig drilling waste management equipment for a drilling company in Nigeria. In Nigeria and other African countries, there are strict laws to regulate the drilling activities especially when taking environment protection in consideration. In Nigeria, along with each drilling rig, there should be a complete set system for waste management, including drilling cuttings waste management and drilling fluids separation.

Drilling cuttings are mainly from the shale shaker. Shale shakers take the heaviest burden in a solids control system, removing most and largest solids particles. But there is one problem that the cuttings discharged from the shale shaker are always quite wet. The cuttings must be well treated before discharge. For one thing, if the wet cuttings are discharged directly, the chemicals on cuttings will damage the environment badly. For the other, the liquid phase on cuttings is drilling fluids, which are quite expensive. Disposal of them means disposal money.

GN has an efficient solution to help solve those problems:

1. GNCD930 Vertical cuttings dryer. This is used for reducing the oil on cuttings, which means, to dry the cuttings before disposal. In this way, the OOC could reduce to below 0.5%. It is quite popular for oil based mud cuttings’ treatment。

2. GNLW363 Decanter centrifuge. After the vertical cuttings dryer, the liquid phase still contains lots of fine particles, and not clean enough to be return to the drilling system. In this case the high speed decanter centrifuge is used to remove the fine particles from the liquid phase discharged from vertical cuttings dryer.

3. Telescopic skids for both decanter centrifuges and vertical cuttings dryer to allow the liquid phase to fall directly to their containers

4. Feeding and conveying equipment for the GNCD930 vertical cuttings dryers and GNLW363 decanter centrifuges. In a complete waste management system, there are screw conveyors for feeding the vertical cuttings dryer and screw pumps for feeding decanter centrifuge.

In this single PO, there are 6 sets of high speed centrifuges, 3 sets vertical cuttings dryers, 15 screw conveyors and 6 screw pumps included.

GN Screw Press Dewatering and Solids Vacuum Pump for ES Company

In the past years, the sludge treatment works are becoming more and more important because of the focusing on the environment protection. The environment protection in this field includes how to make the sludge less polluted before safely discharge. That’s why the efficient solutions for such sludge become more and more popular.

1. Screw press sludge dewatering:

Screw press sludge dewatering machines are coming more and more welcomed to clients. Screw press dewatering is a kind of economic choice which is also quite environmentally friendly. The working principle is just like when you are twisting a wet towel. The motor will generate a strong force for squeezing the wet sludge by changing the screw diameter and screw pitches. The tiny gaps between floating ring and fix ring will do the squeezing work, to leave the sludge into liquid and cakes. Comparing with other separating equipment, the screw press dewatering machines don’t need chemicals and will sure leave less contamination to the surroundings.
In a recent project, an ES Company purchased from GN Solids Control such a screw press dewatering and a vacuum pump.

2. Solids vacuum pump.

A vacuum pump is also called a solids vacuum pump, which allows in material with high solids content, even dry sand, just to make sure that the material largest particle size is within the limit as pump inlet diameter.
The solids vacuum pump can transfer the material to more than 50 meter away. It is fully air driven, no need for consumption of electricity itself. That’s why it can be located at Explosive conditions by being linked to an air compressor.

Based on your jobsite condition, GN Solids Control can offer customized designs with rich experiences and professional engineer team. For more information, welcome to contact GN sales team directly.