A mud cleaner is a combination of

desander Desanders and desilters are solid control equipment with a set of hydrocyclones that separate sand and silt from the drilling fluids in drilling rigs. Desanders are installed on top of the mud tank following the shale shaker and the degasser, bu ...

s and/or desilters to remove drilled solids from

mud A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...

History

Although US Patent No.3,766,997 covering Mud Cleaner was issued on October 23, 1973 granted to J.K. Heilhecker and L.H. Robinson and assigned to Exxon Production Research Company, it was found invalid and efforts for re-issue was unsuccessful because of the existence of

prior art Prior art (also known as state of the art or background art) is a concept in patent law used to determine the patentability of an invention, in particular whether an invention meets the novelty and the inventive step or non-obviousness criteria f ...

filed at the British Patent Office by a German Inventor in the late 1800s. Nowadays, mud cleaner used in oilfield means the equipment processing

drilling mud In geotechnical engineering, drilling fluid, also called drilling mud, is used to aid the drilling of boreholes into the earth. Often used while drilling oil and natural gas wells and on exploration drilling rigs, drilling fluids are also us ...

. It is combined with desander cone and desilter cone as well as bottom shaker. It is called 2nd and 3rd phase solids control equipment.

Description

A mud cleaner is a combination of

s and/or desilters mounted over a shaker with a fine mesh screen. A mud is fed to the inlet of the

hydrocyclone Hydrocyclones are a type of cyclonic separators that separate product phases mainly on basis of differences in gravity with aqueous solutions as the primary feed fluid. As opposed to dry or dust cyclones, which separate solids from gasses, hydrocy ...

(desander and/or desilter) to separate particles and the underflow passes to the fine screen mesh where in particles larger than

barite Baryte, barite or barytes ( or ) is a mineral consisting of barium sulfate ( Ba S O4). Baryte is generally white or colorless, and is the main source of the element barium. The ''baryte group'' consists of baryte, celestine (strontium sulfate), ...

are discarded and thrown away. In most drilling operations, a mud cleaner is installed in its

mud systems Effective solids control can be attributed to the overall performance of all the components of the mud systems. Conditioning the drilling fluid with the goal of dramatically lowering maintenance cost, avoiding excessive chemical treatment and mai ...

. It is usually located in a mud tank in the same location as with the desilters.

Process flow

The weighted mud flows to the inlet head section of the desander and/or desilter entering the hydrocyclones for separation of particles. Mud leaving the underflow is further screened with fine mesh to separate larger particles allowing only barite size particles to pass through the screen returning and recovering then the clean mud.

Purpose

The purpose of the mud cleaner is to remove drilled solids larger than barite. Solids larger than 74–105 micrometres can be removed by the mud cleaner before the viscosity builds up. Mud cleaner can effectively control weighted drilling fluid solid content. Prevent differential pressure sticking, adhesion stuck drill accident, reduce the drill string and the filter cake thickness on bond issues.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mud Cleaner Drilling fluid