Xinchen Yu

Domestic tumble drying is the process of removing moisture retained on fabric surfaces, and within inter-yarn, inter-fiber, and intra-fiber spaces through coupled heat and mass transfer, assisted b...

The growing dependence on energy‐intensive household clothes dryers presents pressing sustainability challenges, while systematic investigations correlating operational parameters with quantifiable energy‐carbon tradeoffs are critically lacking. This study bridges this knowledge gap by investigating the energy and environmental performance of tumble drying through an experimental framework integrating textile properties, operational parameters, and drum geometry. A response surface methodology with 40 designed experimental conditions quantified specific moisture extraction rate, carbon footprint, and monetary utility cost. Multivariate analysis revealed four statistically significant determinants: drum speed (optimal at 1.5 m/s for falling textile motion), load size (3 kg balancing airflow efficiency), air mass flow rate (220 m ³ /h ensuring heat/mass transfer), and initial moisture content (lowered via mechanical dewatering). Through parameter optimization, an eco‐efficient drying procedure achieved 47.7% lower energy consumption, 55.4% higher specific moisture extraction rate, 70.9% reduced carbon emissions, and 77.9% lower monetary utility cost compared with conventional methods. These results highlight the importance of optimizing drying parameters to reduce environmental impact and operational costs. The study provides actionable insights for consumers to adopt sustainable laundry habits and for manufacturers to improve dryer designs. By bridging empirical data, technical optimization, and behavioral strategies, this work establishes a holistic framework for sustainable clothes drying, contributing to household carbon mitigation efforts.

To investigate the influence of fabric motion pattern on damage behaviors of cotton fabric during repeated tumble-drying in clothes dryer, smoothness appearance (SA), dimensional change, softness and microstructure were examined. Results indicated that repeated tumble-drying process led to several degrees of damages on cotton fabric owing to the continuous mechanical motion and the heat-humidity drying air environment. The morphological changes were primarily cracks, peeling-off, distortion, embrittlement and fracture, which depended on drying cycles and the distribution of force on fabric. These findings not only contribute to a better understanding of the mechanism of damage behaviors of cotton fabric in the tumble dryer, but also guide dryer manufactures to optimize drying programs for specific types of fabric.

The impact of lifters on fabric motion in tumble dryers was examined in this study. A trajectory tracking system based on visual imaging techniques was used to investigate the transverse motion of tracer fabric. From the observation of velocity and residence time distributions of tracer fabric, fabric transverse motion can be divided into passive and active regions. These are entirely consistent with existing forms of bed motion describing the behavior of granular media in rotating cylinders in other fields such as chemical engineering, food drying, and clothes washing processes. Experimental and theoretical analyses indicated that the number of lifters had appreciable impacts on the dynamics of fabric motion, manifested in differences in motion pattern and lift height, thereby enhancing the heat and mass transfer inside the drying drum. This can be seen by comparing drying performance under different drying conditions. The findings in this study shed more light on the impact of lifters on fabric transverse motions which has significant implications for the overall design of tumble dryers.