Wayne Nash continues his discussion of solids control with a look at current techniques.
This is where it gets interesting. Some pretty sharp engineers have spent a lot of time on this subject and can do amazing things. Most of the technology comes from the oilfield. In the oilfield, solids control is not a luxury — it is an absolute necessity. Without proper mud chemistry and solids control, we would have drilled up all the cheap, easily available oil years ago. The fact that we now can access oil that was previously undrillable is thanks to sharp thinkers and having plenty of money available to solve the problems. Kinda like an old geezer with a bad bladder, the “trickle-down” theory finally worked for water well drillers. We now have access to the latest and best equipment available to make more hole faster, cheaper and better than ever before.