Pump Rotor Shaft Centrifugal Separator for Lubrication
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Pumps conveying multi-phase mixtures, such as crude oil containing natural gas and water along with harmful solids like sand, face lubrication challenges as the contaminants can cause damage to rotating parts, leading to premature wear and maintenance issues due to unsuitable viscosity and abrasive effects.
Innovation Solution
A pump design incorporating a rotating separation device on the rotor shaft that uses centrifugal force to separate harmful ingredients like sand from the pump fluid, allowing a cleaner phase to be used for lubrication, thereby reducing wear and maintaining optimal lubricant viscosity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If the pump fluid containing harmful solids like sand is used directly as lubricant, then no separate lubricant needs to be provided, but the hard substances cause massive damage to the lubricated parts
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts harmful solids (sand, gravel, metal particles) from the pump fluid through a centrifugal separator before the fluid is used as lubricant. The separator removes these contaminants while allowing the base fluid to proceed to lubricate the rotor shaft, thus taking out the harmful elements that would otherwise cause damage to the lubricated parts
Solution Approach 2:
The centrifugal separator acts as an intermediary device between the pump fluid source and the lubrication system. It processes the pump fluid by removing solids and adjusts the lubricant properties (viscosity, temperature) before delivering the cleaned fluid to the bearing, thus mediating between the raw pump fluid and the lubrication requirement
2Device complexity
If the pump fluid is used as lubricant without filtration, then equipment simplification is achieved, but lubrication reliability deteriorates due to contaminated lubricant
Solution Approach 1:
The centrifugal separator serves as an intermediary that reconciles the contradiction between equipment simplicity and lubrication reliability. It provides necessary filtration and viscosity adjustment without requiring complex external lubricant supply systems, thus maintaining reliability while keeping the overall system relatively simple
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses the pump fluid itself (after centrifugal separation) as the lubricant, making the system self-sufficient. The separator enables the pump fluid to serve its own lubrication function by removing contaminants and adjusting properties, thus the system serves itself without external lubricant supply infrastructure
3Productivity
If bearing gaps are reduced to minimize lubricant consumption, then lubrication efficiency improves, but sand particles cause premature wear due to their non-compressible nature
Solution Approach 1:
The centrifugal separator extracts solid particles (sand, gravel, metal debris) from the pump fluid before it enters the bearing lubrication gap. By removing these non-compressible particles in advance, the bearing can operate with optimized gap dimensions that maximize lubrication efficiency without suffering premature wear from abrasive contaminants
Solution Approach 2:
The separation and cleaning of the lubricant occurs preliminarily before the lubricant enters the bearing. The centrifugal separator performs contamination removal and viscosity adjustment upstream, so that by the time the lubricant reaches the bearing, it is already cleaned and optimized, preventing wear before it can occur
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The separation device effectively removes solid and fluid components that adversely affect lubrication, enabling the use of a suitably cleaned pump fluid for lubrication, thereby reducing wear and extending maintenance intervals while ensuring smooth operation.
Implementation Method 1
A pump design incorporating a rotating separation device on the rotor shaft that uses centrifugal force to separate harmful ingredients like sand from the pump fluid
Data Source
Figure 1a
Figure 1b
Figure 1c
AI summary
The pump (1) has a pump rotor (4) rotatably supported around a rotational axis (A) in a pump stator (3) in an operating state, and a rotor shaft (5) arranged in a shaft feedthrough (6) such that a lubricating film of a lubricating fluid is formed in a ring gap between the shaft and the feedthrough. A separation device (7) is arranged at the shaft for separating a predefinable quantity of an ingredient from pump fluid (2) by centrifugal force for providing the lubricating fluid to the gap. A recirculation device (8) is arranged such that gas (201) is recirculated with the separation device. The separation device is designed as a separation disk.