Conference Year

2021

Keywords

vacuum; clothes dryer; transient; heat and mass transfer

Abstract

Clothes drying accounts for a significant amount of energy consumed in residential and commercial sectors. Thermal vacuum clothes drying technology (TVCD) is proposed as an advanced clothes dryer that can significantly reduce the energy requirements by expediting the drying process. In the conventional convective clothes dryer, hot dry air is introduced into the drum which gets in direct contact to dry the clothes. This process is energy inefficient since the significant amount of heat and the water carried out with the exhaust stream are wasted. In contrast to the conventional convective drying technique, the drying mechanism of TVCD is through nucleate boiling at low temperature due to reduced vessel pressure. The process is not only efficient but also reduces the required time for drying. This paper aims to develop a comprehensive thermodynamic model to predict the transient drying process of TVCD. The three-stage system-level model can simulate the water content variation in the textile under various operational conditions, with detailed analysis of individual components. The preliminary results show that the drying time of 3 lb textile from 70% to 2.5% in TVCD is approximately four times less than the time required in the conventional clothes dryer. Parametric studies help understanding the effect of operating conditions and component geometry on the system performance, and the system's energy consumption is also analyzed.

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