Method of mixing and apparatus therefor

Abstract

Mixing apparatus is provided having a motor driven rotating head which is suspended above a fixed mixing bowl. A guide post is pivotally mounted on the head for oscillative rotation about the axis of rotation of the head and eccentric drive means are mounted on the head and spaced from the guide post. A connecting rod has one end thereof connected to the eccentric drive and is slidably received by the guide post to produce said oscillative rotation of the guide post and a slidable oscillation of the rod relative to the guide post. A mixing paddle has an arm portion pivotally connected to the guide post for oscillative rotation therewith and oscillative swinging about an axis transverse of the axis of oscillative rotation. Link means pivotally connect the paddle arm portion and the other end of the rod to produce said oscillative swinging of the paddle. The simultaneously performed steps of rotatively oscillating the mixing paddle about the axis of rotation of the head, swingably oscillating the paddle about an axis transverse of the axis of rotation, and causing the paddle to continuously rotate with the head produce a method of mixing in which the paddle has a three-dimensional oscillatory motion along a spherically-oriented closed path resembling a "figure 8" during the rotation, so that the paddle has with respect to the bowl a three-dimensional continuous motion along a spherically-oriented open path resembling a series of radially-disposed overlapping lobes. When the number of cycles of said three-dimensional oscillatory motion completed by the paddle during a single rotation of the head is a circulating decimal, the open path traced by the mixing paddle with respect to the bowl will never be repeated during operation of the mixer.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.