What is the working principle of mud cleaner?

Mud cleaner is a combination of desander and desilter, which is mounted over a shaker with a fine mesh screen, to remove the solids from the drilling mud. As the third stage of solids control equipment at drilling rig, mud cleaner plays an important role in solids control system.

Structure and working principle of mud cleaner
Mud cleaner is composed of manifold, shaker screen, and hydrocyclone. First the drilling fluids are sucked up to 0.25Mpa ~ 0.4Mpa by sand pump, and enter into the cones through the side inlet which is normally only 2-1/2″diameter. The fluids then flow spirally inside of the cone. Effected by the centrifugal force, the heavy solids in the fluids would be throwed towards the inner wall of the cones, go down to the bottom, and discharge through the sand discharge port, while the light fluids would go up and discharge through the upper outlet. The diameter of the bottom discharge port is adjustable, and with a cover of hydrocyclone.

Mud cleaner is normally mounted after the vacuum degasser, but before centrifuge, so that the air that enter into the drilling mud can be first removed by degasser, and avoiding air blocking of the mud cleaner hydrocyclone. And the drilling mud with smaller particles can go to the centrifuge through vertical slurry pump to be further treated.