Relationship between drying parameters and drying performance in domestic tumble dryers

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of drying parameters on drying performance in an air-vented tumble dryer, and to optimize its drying performance by adjusting parameters. The critical drying parameters that influenced specific moisture extraction rate (SMER), final moisture content, evenness of drying, and smoothness appearance were determined by the analysis of variance in JMP software, which were rotational speed of the motor and load size, with clearly significant individual effects and binary interactions. In order to improve the applicability of the outcomes obtained in this study and to take into account the interactions between drying parameters and drum structure parameters on drying efficiency, non-dimensional analysis was used and the correlation between drying efficiency and dimensionless variables was studied. The Buckingham Pi theorem was applied to the problem to derive dimensionless Pi terms upon which the drying efficiency depends. A step regression analysis was then conducted to test the assumption that SMER was influenced by the dimensionless parameters based on the standard least squares fitting. Results indicated that the regression model showed an explanatory power of 73.8%. By adjusting the dimensionless parameters in the model, an optimized energy-saving drying program was obtained with the desirability goal of reducing the value of SMER. Compared with the original program, energy efficiency was improved by 32.4%.