1 research outputs found
Ultrasonic system for continuous washing of textiles in liquid layers
5 páginas, 10 figuras, 1 tablaThe use of ultrasonic energy for washing of textiles has been tried several times without achieving practical
development. In fact, the softness of the fibres makes the cavitation to produce small erosion effect
and the reticulate structure of the fabric favours the formation of air bubble layers which obstruct wave
penetration. In addition, a high proportion of water with respect to the wash load and a certain water
degassing is required to assure efficiency and homogeneity in the wash performance. Such requirements
have hindered the commercial development of the ultrasonic washing machines for domestic purposes.
For specific industrial applications, a great part of these limitations may be overcome. This article deals
with a new process in which the fabric is exposed to the ultrasonic field in a flat format. Such process has
been implemented at laboratory and at semi-industrial stage by using specially designed power ultrasonic
transducers with rectangular plate radiators. The cleaning effect is produced by the intense cavitation
field generated by the plate radiator within a thin layer of liquid where the fabric is introduced. The
homogeneity of such effect is achieved by the successive exposure of all the fabric areas to the intense
acoustic field. In this paper the structure and performance of the developed system are shown.This work was funded by the UE programmes VALUE II (Project
nÂş CTT-673) and STREP (Project NMP2-CT-2003-505892).Peer reviewe