Centrifugal Purifiers/Clarifiers

Purifiers and Clarifiers differ only in that clarifiers are not set up to remove
water. Their design are similar to the point that most purifiers found on board
can be converted to use as a clarifier with simple alteration of the gravity disc

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.

Knowing this it is possible to form a rudimentary purification

system.

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.
 Principle of seperation in centrifuge containing
angled plate stack

Fluid moving between two plates has a velocity greatest at mid

point and minimum approaching the plates.
a particle entering into the plates will tend to be pushed upwards by the fluid
flow. All the time centrifugal foce tends to retard the horizontal component of
the movement causing the partical to approach the underside of the top disc.
As it approaches the fluid flow velocity reduces. The centrifugal force
eventually overcomes the force acting on the partical due to fluid movement
and th epartical starts to move towards the oute rim. The centrifugal force
acting on a particle is proportional to its mass therefore a small particle will
tend to move further under the influence of fluid flow. Indeed a particle small
enough will be carried through the plates and out with the discharge. In this
way it can be seen that reducing the flow rate to a purifier will tend to increase
the quality of the output.

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.

Choosing Gravity Disc

The graph shown above is one typical of one found in a purifer

instruction book for selecting appropriate gravity disc size. Shown on the
diagram is an example of an oil of sg 0.93 at 0'C. The sg at 15'C for use with
this graph is found by projecting along a horizontal line to 15'C. This step
would be omitted if the sg at 15'C was already known. A line is then drawn
parallel to the pre-drawn sloping lines. Where the drawn sloping line cuts the
appropriate oil supply temperature isothermal then This becomes the selection
point for the disc. This is found simply by ascertaining which size band the
point lies in.

Self cleaning centrifuge

 The majority of purifers found on board are of the self cleaning
type intat they are able to open the bowl to discharge any accummulated
sludge. Apart from the sliding bowl the main difference is the centripetal pump
over the simple design. In this a fixed centrigual style impeller is mounted in
the light phase outlet drawing the oil and discharging it at pressure sufficient
to deliver it to the receiving tank. A discharge valve is fitted which is adjusted
to give a constant back pressure in the bowl. The adjustment of this back
pressure tends to move the position of the interface but more importantly
increases the oil in the light phase delivery chamber increaseing the immersion
depth of the lip of the pump. This reduces possiblility of air being entrained and
removes foaming.. In the event of bowl failure back pressure will fall, this may
be detected by a pressure switch initiaing a shut down

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
Typical alarms and shut downs

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

Sharples constant sludging

Heres one to send a shiver down the spine of anybody of my age.

This consisted essentially of a standard non desludging bowl into which were
drilled small holes on the circumference fitted with nozzles. Seal water was
pumped continuously from a small catchment tank mounted adjacent to the
purifer into the bowl where it passed though to be ejected through the jets. It
then drained to the catchment tank. Dirty oil would float to the surface where
it would overflow though a surface mounted skimmer to the sludge tank.
Theoretically the bowl could run for considerable periods without cleaning. The
reality was one to two weeks, bowl cleaning included patiently trying to clear
the small bore nozzles. I remember loading bunkers which were brick red, it
contained lots of sand. The purifer was permenantly overflowing to an extent
we had to use the second purifier to run on the sludge tank. Bowl cleans were
every day with the other engineers playing the 'it best if one person
concentrates on them' card. The worst aspect was the Chief Engineer who used
to lie in wait for me when I was called out during the night. On sneaking back
to for some sleep he would drag me into to his cabin ( which was next to mine)
for a thank you drink- this inevitably lasted untill 8 am

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.
 Control and Operating water
Water must be supplied at a fixed pressure to ensure that the quantity
supplied to the purifer is constant for the set parameters. The water normally
comes from the vessels hot water system or is independently heated to reduce
thermal shocking and to prevent cooling of the hot oil

Drive

Considerable torque would be required to direct drive the bowl

upto speed using an appropriately sized electric motor. In addition very high
loading would occur on the gear train, to prevent scuffing due to oil film
breakdown would require large mating areas therby large gear trains which
would again increase the starting load.
A centrifugal clutch arrangement is fitted which has between 2 and 6 ferrodo
lined brake pads. These are designed to slip during the start up period and also
to a much lesser extent during the speed up period after de-sludge. Purifer
manufacturers will usually quote a maximum and MINIMUM start up time. As
the pads wear it may be necessary to remove and restore the mating surface
to keep the start up time correct. As a last measure the number of pads should
be altered
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.

As well as overload other causes of premature failure are poor

design ( step forward westfalia), poor material choice, poor lube oil choice, too
long a de-sludge period relative to supplied oil quality, out of balance bowl,
failing bearing set in particular the vertical shaft upper resilient bearing
arrangement
The use of planned maintenance is essential particularly with respect to
bearing changes. It is strongly recommended to monitor condition using
vibration analysis

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