What is "desander"

n. A piece of equipment used in the petroleum industry to remove sand (defined as particles greater than or equal to 74 microns) from the drilling fluid. It is part of the solid control equipment designed to remove harmful solids from the fluid for trouble-free operations.

Desanders and desilters are solid control equipment with a set of hydrocyclones that separate sand and silt from the drilling fluids in drilling rigs. Desanders are installed on top of the mud tank following the shale shaker and the degasser, but before the desilter. Desander removes the abrasive solids from the drilling fluids which cannot be removed by shakers. Normally the solids diameter for desander to be separated would be 45~74μm, and 15~44μm for desilter.

A centrifugal pump is used to pump the drilling fluids from mud tank into the set of hydrocyclones.