System and method for blending of bulk dry materials in oil well cementing

A method of mixing dry component products to produce a blended dry well cement that is mixable with water to produce a pumpable, settable well cement slurry, said method comprising:

• providing a plurality of tanks, each of the tanks holding a respective one of said component products for said cement;
• providing a plurality of supply pipes wherein each of the plurality of supply pipes has a first and a second end, the first end being connected to a corresponding tank of the plurality of tanks;
• providing a common mixing pipe, wherein the second end of each of the plurality of supply pipes is connected to an upstream end of the mixing pipe;
• wherein at least one of the plurality of supply pipes or the mixing pipe includes a static mixer disposed therein to mix products passing through the pipe having the static mixer;
• wherein at least one of the plurality of supply pipes includes a mass flow meter to measure a mass of the component products passing through the supply pipe monitored by the mass flow meter;
• wherein at least one of the plurality of supply pipes includes a flow throttling valve to control a flow of the component products passing through the supply pipe controlled by the flow throttling valve;
• providing a controller communicating with the mass flow meter and the flow throttling valve to automatically determine control parameters for delivery of the component products to include material weights or delivery rates of the component products;
• determining a desired composition for the cement;
• and
• delivering each of the component products through a respective one of the respective supply pipes at a determined rate such that the cement is formed in the mixing pipe having the desired cement composition;
• and
• wherein at least one current material ratio set point value is determined and subsequently utilized by said controller to control delivery of the component products to achieve the desired cement composition.