Preamble
The unit described is a sliding bowl type, does not have on line
sludging capability with light phase requiring heating. Operating water is required
for both opening, and closing the bowl. It is accepted that in common designs
only opening water is supplied, once supplied this water leaks out until it reaches
a level determined by a weir arrangement. The water remaining beyond this weir
acts to close the bowl
Most units have a brake arrangement fitted acting on the bowl to slow
during stopping. This should be check to be disengaged.
The light phase (oil) supply, discharge valves may be opened, the
flow control valve and back pressure valve may be set at approximate initial
settings. The three way valve is set to recirc (dump)
Remember that when the oil is introduced to the bowl the bowl is cool and so
the oil will be cooled and will tend to pass over with the heavy phase. This
action may be reduced by having the back pressure discharge valve slightly
more open than required closing as the bowl warms.
The bowl may be started. Drive to the bowl is via a centrifugal clutch
arrangement reducing the starting current on the motor. The start up time is
determined by the slippage of this clutch which is in turn determined by the
number of pads. The oil is now being circulated though the heater. The heating
medium may be introduced to bring the oil to purifying temperature
It should be noted that for some designs the motor is non-standard being able
to carry high starting currents over a longer period. When requesting
replacements this should be noted.
Too few pads causes an overly long start up time. In addition, the
drag of the liquid as it leaves the bowl during a sludge cycle causes a
reduction in speed. For automated systems, this speed must be regained
before the oil is reintroduced otherwise carryover can occur. With some
designs correct sludging is determined by an expected rise in drive current
caused by the motor trying to bring the bowl back to speed. Too few pads
may cause problems in both these cases.
Too many pads leads to excessive force on the drive gear leading
to premature failure especially of the wheel and the electric motor.
When the bowl has reached it operating speed the bowl may be
closed by introducing closing operating water.
It is unlikely that the bowl will immediately come " on-line ", this is generally
due to the bowl being cold, cooling the oil, increasing its specific gravity and
causing it to pass over the heavy phase (water) shute.
Once the unit has been proved on line and operating correctly the
alarms and shutdowns should be tested. Where the units overflow to a sludge
tank the correct operation of the alarm should be checked.
The testing of the alarms and shut downs is paramount. Once completed,
especially for main engine lube oil purifiers, a note should be made in the
engineroom log book
Automation
The vast majority of units will be fully automated for UMS enginerooms. Sludging
will involve pressing a single button. A controller will then cycle through the
operating, displacement and seal water valves as well as operate the three way
valve. The heater will have an independent controller although a zero output
signal may be generated by the purifier controller during the sludge period.
If an oily water mix is placed into a tank then speration of the two
parts will begin with the lighter element rising to the top. The rate the seperation
occurs is governed by several factors including the difference in specific gravities
and the force of gravity acting upon it.
For mixes placed into a settling tank there is little that can be done about the
gravity but the difference in the specific gravities can be increased by heating.
This because water density changes at a much reduced rate when compared to
oil. The limiting factor to this is that the water cannot be heated above 100'C for
obvious reasons.
A wide shallow tank will increase the rate of clarification over a tall
thin tank
Principles of operation
When a volume of light oil is placed into a tank contain a weir and a
quantity of water the fluids will tend to arrange themselves as shown above. The
height of the water in the weir rises to a point governed by the volume ( and
thereby relative height) and specific gravity of the light oil.
As a oil/water mix is fed into the tank seperation begins with heavy particulates
falling to the base of the tank along with water which joins the other water excess
overflowing the heavy phase weir. Hopefully clear oil passes over the light phase
weir. The problem arises that to ensure their is suffcient time to allow for
full(seperation of the oily mix the flow would have to be very small relative to the
size of the tank.
Basic centrifuge
The basic centrifuge differs than that described above most obviously
by sitting on its side. In reality it takes the form of a round bowl a cross section of
which will show something like that seen above. Gravity is replaced by centripetal
force as the bowl is spun at high revolutions thereby creating very high g-forces.
A disc stack is incorporated to encourage a laminar flow increaseing improving
the seperation effect. Dirty oil is introduced via a centreline oil feed dip tube. The
oil is led to distribution holes which are refected in the disc stack but not the dam
The following factors are of importance when understanding the function of the
purifier
Increasing the sg of the oil will tend to push the interface outlet and
cause overflow from the heavy phase outlet untill the equilibrium is
restored. Should the interface be moved so far as to breach the dam
oil will be issued from the heavy phase outlet and an alarm will
sound.The ideal position for the interface is to lie over the
distribution holes
Reducing the sg of the oil will tend to bring the interface towards the
axis, this reduces the force of speration on the oil mix and reduces
the efficacy of the unit possibly leading to contaminants and water
carryover with the light phase outlet
the "gravity" disc are changeable on virtually all purifers. Their
centre bore is governed by the sg of the oil being centrifuged. The
largest bore should be used without risking overflow
The flow rate of a purifer should be set to optimise removal of whole
system impurities. The lower the oil feed the greater the time for
impurity removal and the more efficient the purification. The higher
the rate the greater the amount of system oil is treated per unit of
time. For a system such as main engine oil where contaminants are
continuously being added to the system. As a rule of thumb the total
volume of the system should pass through the purifer three times
every 24 hours, this rate may be vary depending on operational
parameters. A similar calculation has to be made with fuel oil to
ensure removal of water and sludges which may accummulate over
time.
Desludge event
For the bowl shown above a typical sequence of events would be< p class =
"noindent">
1. Bowl online
2. sludge cycle timer activates and bowl comes off line (heater may be
disconnected at this time
3. Oil feed stopped
4. Oil still in bowl displaced by addition of a quantity of displacement water
5. Bowl open control water passed to bowl via distributor, bowl opens
6. Bowl open water discharged via a small orifice
7. Bowl closes
8. Seal water added
9. Oil feed commenced, timer started to give set time for back pressure to
build up for oil disharge
10. heater reconnected
The following gives a general list of alarms only some of which may be fitted.
Back Pressure shutdown- this measures the discharge oil pressure
and alarms and initiates a shut down when below a set value
Heavy phase overflow. Oil has a much higher visccosity than water.
The heavy phase outlet is led to asmall catchment tank containg a
float. The outlet from the tank is restricted in such a way that water
flows freely but oil tends to back up. This initiates an alarm and shut
down
Bowl not open- This may be dome in several ways, typically by a
lever switch operated by the discharged sludge hitting a striker
plate. A nouther method is by measuring the motor current, when the
bowl opens the bowl speed is dragged down due to friction effects
of the dischargeing sludge and water. The motor current rises until
full speed is reestablished. This is detected by a current sensing
relay
Water in oil- This found on modern designs which have a detection
probe mounted in the oil discharge
High temperature alarm and shut down
Low control/seal water pressure. Where control water is supplied via
a fixed small header tanks a float switch may be fitted.
Other Designs
Modern trends
The most obvious trend is that towars online sludging. In this during normal
operation a small quanity of extra seal water is added and the bowl opened for an
extremently short period of time thus removing the need to interupt the process.
The electric motor may be of special design allowing for a long period of slight
overload during the start up period.
The gear train is generally a single stage worm and wheel arrangement with the
wheel being made of a softer material. Lubrication is normally splash only, the
viscosity of the oil is essential to prevent wear as the form of lubrication is mainly
boundary therefore the wear is governed by the viscosity and additives contained
within the oil.
When wear occurs it will be scuffing and relative movement between the mating
faces polishes out any pitting. As wear worsens galling occurs destroying the
running surface. This damage is reflected in both elements therefore both should
be changed.
Bowl Cleaning
Should be carried out at regular intervals not exceeding manufacturers
recommendations. Every care should be taken not to score the surfaces of the
bowl especially the sliding surfaces for de-sludging types. The disc stack is
generally numbered and should be built up as per this system as the stack is a
balanced unit.
Water washing
This was a techniques employed some time ago to improve purification of lube oil
and to remove acids. It involved continuously adding a small quantity of water at
oil temperature to the oil inlet which would pass through and overflow. This is
much out of favour as it tends to remove the essential oil additives in particualr
detergents. An alternative is to inject steam which improves the removal of
colloidal carbon by causing it to coagulate
Typical Circuit
Shown is a typical circuit for a lube oil system although it can equally
be applied to a fuel system. Control is achieved by the three way valve which
eitherdiverst oil to recirculate or sends it to the purifer.
Oil flow rate is controlled by the oil control valve situated before the
positive displacement delivery pump which is driven off the purifier horizontal
shaft via a weak link arrangement
Back pressure from the purifer is controlled at oultet via the back pressure control
valve