Patent ID: 7363829

Claim:
A device for sampling drill cuttings comprising: a frame directly mountable to and supported by, so as to cooperate with, a downstream end of a vibratory screen over which drill cuttings are passed in a downstream flow direction so that vibratory motion of the vibrating screen is transmitted at least in part to said frame, an inclined perforated planar member mounted on said frame, said planar member including a plate or sieve screen having perforations over at least a portion thereof between an upstream end and a downstream end of said planar member wherein said perforations are sized to screen out those cuttings exceeding a pre-determined size and to allow to pass through said perforations those cuttings equal to or less than said pre-determined size, and wherein said perforations are disposed on said planar member so that a substantially linear flow path between said upstream and downstream ends of said planar member along which cuttings translate pass over so as to intersect a plurality of said perforations, a sprayer mounted adjacent said upstream end of said planar member so as to direct fluid spray downstream along said planar member and over said perforations, an open-topped cuttings collector removably mounted to said frame so as to be insertable into a collecting position disposed beneath said perforations on said perforated planar member, and removable from said frame so that the cuttings may be removed from said collector for analysis, wherein said upstream end of said planar member has an inlet width which is less than a corresponding width of the downstream end of the vibratory screen so that only a pre-selected ratio of the cuttings on the vibratory screen are entrained onto said upstream end of said planar member, whereby, the drill cuttings for any particular drill-hole cross-section are uniformly sampled and the resulting sample of a selectively pre-determined volume for ease of and efficient removal for analysis.