Preliminary Results about the Energy Saving Applied to the Decanter Centrifuge Used in Olive Oil Extraction

This paper illustrates the simulation, the experimental measurements and the analysis of the optimal coupling between a decanter centrifuge used for olive oil extraction in the olive oil mills and a the three-phase induction motor. The simulation offers the vantage of the reduction of the costs of purchasing various kind of motors to be tested. In this simulation different typologies of coupling between a driving electronic variable frequency driver, an alternating current electric induction motors and the decanter centrifuge were examined. Results show that the motor oversizing is necessary to improve the efficiency of the machine but the oversizing is limited by the asymptotic behaviour of the specific energy consumption with respect to the induction motor rated mechanical power. When comparing the "variable frequency" driving mode to the "field oriented control" driving mode, the gain in the overall energy consumption over the entire 40 days period of the campaign in the olive oil mill was between 7.7% and 8.2%, and when comparing the most common direct to electric line "STAR" connection driving mode to the "field oriented control", the gain was between 2.9% and 3.9% .