Sieve Analysis Coaching

Published: Tue, 07/10/18

I was reading a book recently by the late great basketball coach and manager Red Auerbach.


Coach Auerbach coached many many championship teams, and as manager helped build a dynasty for the Boston Celtics.


In the book, he discusses the importance of effective communications.


And how sometimes simpler is better.


In a great example in the book, he discusses how he was coaching a group of young men (they might have been high school freshman or around that age group) and he started out at too high of a level for them.


He was teaching them formations and plays, and they were kinda confused.


So, he stopped what he was doing, grabbed a basketball, and told the players, listen up.


Coach Auerbach told them, "The goal of this game is to to get this ball into our hoop down there. And we want to do whatever we can to prevent the opposing team from putting this ball in their hoop, over there.
Got it?"


He said that by simplifying what they were doing, it made it much easier for the boys to catch on.


Often in the lab business, it's easy to get all wrapped around and obsessed with complicated testing procedures and equipment.


But one of the simplest -- yet most important -- tests that we can do for you is the sieve analysis.


A sieve analysis is simply figuring out what the size spread is for particles in a sample.


We take an 80-120 gram sample of material, and then run it through a stack of sieves that each have a different mesh size.


We weigh the sieves both before and after we do the procedure, in order to see how much is retained on each sieve.


Then, we use a nifty spreadsheet and graph to show how the size varies throughout the sample.


We can then choose to focus on specific size fractions within the sample, depending on how much of each fraction is present.


For possible frac sand producers, it's important to know how much of each fraction is present, in order to determine what products might be made and sold to the market.


In some cases, with the right fractions of frac sand, some businesses are able to build a sand operation that rivals one of Red Auerbach's Boston Celtic teams for its cash flow!


To get our lab started on doing a sieve analysis for you, visit us!