Desanding plants

Desanding plants are employed to remove soil partcles in drilling muds and support slurries used in foundation engineering. They can be either water-bentonite, water-polymere, or water-cement and bentonite suspensions. Desan-ding plants have further applications in gravel pits, in the mining industry and in microtunneling projects. The regeneration or cleaning capacity of a desanding plant is determined by the plant´s intake capacity of contaminated suspension. It is defined in m3/h. The regeneration efficiency or the "significant cut-off point" -d50- indicates the smallest particle size of which at least 50% can be removed from a suspension. It is expressed in 1/1000 mm or micron.

The main components of all desanding plants are:

• coarse screen for intercepting stones larger than 5 mm
• storage tank of the coarse screen
• cyclone with cyclone feeder pump for removing fine particles from the suspension
• dewatering screens for abstracting further water from the solids dis-charged by the cyclone.