Measurement and analysis of clothes dryer air leakage

Journal Article · Thu Apr 23 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Drying Technology

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/07373937.2020.1753765· OSTI ID:1649634

Boudreaux, Philip ^[1]; Gluesenkamp, Kyle R. ^[1]; Patel, Viral K. ^[1]; Shen, Bo ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Each year clothes dryer appliances are sold globally in the tens of millions. Both vented and ventless types are common and are heated by combustion, electric resistance, or electric heat pumps. In the dyer air path, segments can be defined between components such as the drum, blower, filter, screens or grills, and heat exchangers (where applicable). In this work, a technique was developed to experimentally measure air leakage into and from the segments of a clothes dryer. Detailed leakage measurements were taken on two vented and one ventless residential clothes dryer. The measurements were quantified as a leakage flow coefficient for each segment. For two dryers (one vented and one ventless), these flow coefficients were combined with in situ operating pressure measurements to determine leakage flow rates for each segment. For these two units under normal operation with air pressures within 0.5 kPa (50 mm water column) of ambient pressure, volumetric system air leakage was found to be about 20–60% of the blower airflow. Furthermore, a quasi–steady state psychrometric analysis was conducted on vented dryers with negatively pressurized drums. The analysis revealed that leakage quantity, location, and direction are essential to achieving an acceptable energy balance and accurate modeling results for a vented heat pump clothes dryer but are of limited significance for vented electric resistance clothes dryers.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1649634
• Journal Information: Drying Technology, Journal Name: Drying Technology Journal Issue: TBD Vol. TBD; ISSN 0737-3937
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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