Power consumption reduction studies and analysis for centrifugal separator

The factors affecting the power consumption of centrifugal separators can be grouped under four main headings. These are air friction on the outer surface of bowl group, mechanical losses due to friction on moving parts, electrical losses and flow losses. The parameters affecting the power consumption are examined in detail under these headings. It has been found that 32% of the total power consumption is spent to overcome the air friction on the outer surface of bowl group, 9% to mechanical losses, 10% to electrical losses and 49% to accelerate the flow and constitutes the biggest consumption among the other power components. The main factor for reducing power consumption due to angular momentum without reducing separation efficiency is the focus on centripetal pump design. With the optimized centripetal pump, the power consumption per cubic meter has been reduced to 0.99 kWh m-3 and 12% reduction in total power consumption was achieved. Key Words: Centrifugal separator, power consumption, centripetal pump