Conductive/convective drying of textiles materials

Drying is a complex process, intensive in terms of energy and capital consumption, in the industrial production of textiles. Moreover, many types of textiles are produced with variable compositions and with different manufacturing conditions, depending on the product usage. The thermal characteristics of these materials, determine a controlled speed of drying, beginning with high temperatures. In this work, experimental studies are conducted to determine the effects of some manufacturing conditions, as heated surface (hot plate) temperature and initial moisture content on the conductive/convective drying kinetics of a specific commercial textile. The experimental apparatus tries to reproduce the operational conditions of the conventional textile dryers and consists of a metallic box heated by a thermostatic bath containing an upper surface on which the cotton knitting samples are placed. Samples material is a commercial knitting cotton, consisting of yarn interlacement, producing a soft and flexible textile. To verify the influence of process conditions - samples initial moisture content, heated surface temperature - in the drying behavior of this kind of textile, the drying curves and drying rate curves are obtained and analyzed for three different initial moisture content, hot plate temperature between 50 and 100 degreesC.