Viscosity and other properties are determined at desired temperatures in drilling mud and other fluids by using a versatile cavitation device which, operating in the cavitation mode, mixes and heats the fluid to a specified temperature, and, operating in the shear mode, acts as a spindle for application of Couette principles to determine viscosity as a function of shear stress and shear rate. The invention obviates the practice of adjusting rheology of a drilling fluid by passing it through the drill bit. Drilling fluid may be managed by a straight-through method to the well, or by placing the cavitation device in a loop which isolates an aliquot of known volume and circulating the fluid through the loop including the cavitation device. A controller may be programmed to manage the viscosity and other properties at various temperatures by controlling the power input and angular rotation of the spindle (which has cavities on its cylindrical surface), and feeding viscosity-adjusting agents and other additives to the fluid. Data may be collected from the loop and used in the straight-through mode until it is determined that conditions require a new set of data, or the loop may be used continuously. The system may be used with a supplemental viscometer, density meter, and other instruments.

Viscosity and other properties are determined at desired temperatures in drilling mud and other fluids by using a versatile cavitation device which, operating in the cavitation mode, mixes and heats the fluid to a specified temperature, and, operating in the shear mode, acts as a spindle for application of Couette principles to determine viscosity as a function of shear stress and shear rate. The invention obviates the practice of adjusting rheology of a drilling fluid by passing it through the drill bit. Drilling fluid may be managed by a straight-through method to the well, or by placing the cavitation device in a loop which isolates an aliquot of known volume and circulating the fluid through the loop including the cavitation device. A controller may be programmed to manage the viscosity and other properties at various temperatures by controlling the power input and angular rotation of the spindle (which has cavities on its cylindrical surface), and feeding viscosity-adjusting agents and other additives to the fluid. Data may be collected from the loop and used in the straight-through mode until it is determined that conditions require a new set of data, or the loop may be used continuously. The system may be used with a supplemental viscometer, density meter, and other instruments.

Dust produced by handling proppant during fracking or other mechanical operations can be a health and/or safety hazard. The dust can be eliminated or at least mitigated using a method of conducting a hydraulic fracturing or other mechanical operation on an oil or gas well including treating a proppant that has been transported to an end use site at a level sufficient to prevent the formation of dust during handling of the proppant.

A stirring device, in particular reactor stirring device, has at least one holder which is configured for holding at least one brittle unit within a container relative to at least one container wall of the container, and which has at least one holding unit for this purpose. At least one holding position of the holder relative to the container wall can be adapted by means of the holding unit.

A blender has a mixing chamber for reception of materials to be blended. A mixing screw is mounted at a bottom of the mixing chamber for mixing materials within the mixing chamber and delivering mixed materials to an outlet feeding a processing line. The blender has a plurality of material handling compartments. One or more cleaning air jets are provided in each material handling compartment. The cleaning air jets are operable to direct material towards an outlet of the compartment. Each cleaning air jet is connected to a pressurised air supply through a valve which controls delivery of pressurised air to the cleaning air jet.

The present invention provides a mixing impeller and the like capable of properly performing mixing. A mixing impeller includes multiple blade pairs each having two blades, wherein the blades included in the multiple blade pairs are attached around a rotational shaft extending in a lateral direction, so as to be positioned at a same position in an axial direction of the rotational shaft, the two blades of each blade pair each have a shape that is symmetric about a symmetry plane that is a plane perpendicular to the rotational shaft, the two blades of each blade pair are formed so as to extend from the rotational shaft side toward an outer circumferential side, which is a side opposite to the rotational shaft side, and blade outer portions that are on the outer circumferential side are bent toward a side on which the two blades face each other.

A stirring device, in particular reactor stirring device, has at least one holder which is configured for holding at least one brittle unit within a container relative to at least one container wall of the container, and which has at least one holding unit for this purpose.

At least one holding position of the holder relative to the container wall can be adapted by means of the holding unit.

A microwavable container for use in a microwave oven that includes provisions to stir or mix food during microwave cooking. This mixing action is achieved by utilizing the motor of the microwave oven. Such mixing provides more even heating of food, and reduces the need to stop the microwave oven to manually stir food.

A beverage mixing system/method allowing faster mixing/blending of frozen beverages is disclosed. The system/method in various embodiments utilizes inductive coupling to introduce heat into the frozen beverage during the mixing/blending process via a rotating driveshaft and attached mechanical agitator to speed the mixing/blending process. Exemplary embodiments may be configured to magnetically induce heat into the driveshaft and/or mechanical agitator mixing blade to affect this mixing/blending performance improvement. This heating effect may be augmented via the use of high power LED arrays aimed into the frozen slurry to provide additional heat input. The system/method may be applied with particular advantage to the mixing of ice cream type beverages and other viscous beverage products.

The invention provides stirring and/or mixing utensils such as pots, pans and the like, for preparing foodstuffs for consumption by mixing and possibly also heating them in an environment in which they can be tumbled or otherwise moved in three-dimensions. Utensils in accordance with some embodiments of the invention comprise cooking or frying utensils incorporating a food chamber that is mounted for rotation about three orthogonal axes. Utensils in accordance with other embodiments of the invention use, in combination, a food chamber mounted for rotation about two mutually orthogonal axes and a stirring device driven about the third axis.