Patent Application
20120110869
Laundry treating appliances, such as laundry dryers, may have means to detect an end of a cycle of operation with the use of various sensors, such as humidity sensors and temperature sensors. In the case of a drying cycle of operation, by making a quick detection when laundry is dry, energy consumption in the laundry dryer could be reduced. On the other hand, a false detection of an end of cycle may result in incomplete drying of clothes.
In one embodiment, the invention is related to a method of operating a laundry treating appliance having a rotatable treating chamber for receiving laundry to be dried according to a predetermined cycle of operation by supplying air into the treating chamber, heating the air as it is supplied into the treating chamber, and rotating the treating chamber to tumble the laundry within the treating chamber. Heated air is supplied into the treating chamber while the treating chamber is rotated to define a supply air flow and the heated air is exhausted from the treating chamber to define an exhaust air flow. The temperature of the laundry is determined to define a laundry temperature and the temperature of the exhaust air flow is determined to define an exhaust air temperature. A difference between the laundry temperature and the exhaust air temperature is determined, the difference is compared to a threshold, and the laundry is determined to be dry when the difference satisfies the threshold.
In the drawings:
This invention relates generally to the field of laundry treating devices and more particularly to a method of operating a laundry dryer to determine when laundry contained within the laundry dryer is dry, i.e. the laundry reaches a desired degree of dryness, which may be determined by the moisture content of the laundry.
Moisture sensors, such as conductivity hits sensors are commonly used to detect a dry laundry state, but may be ineffective in determining an end of cycle when the laundry is almost dry. Inlet and outlet air temperature sensors may also be used to determine if laundry is dry, but these methods may also have deficiencies related to inaccurate prediction of the end of cycle when the clothes load is small. The invention addresses the issue of inaccurate determination of when a laundry load is dry by using laundry temperature data.
Any desired type of laundry may be dried. Examples of such laundry include, but are not limited to, a hat, a scarf, a glove, a sweater, a blouse, a shirt, a pair of shorts, a dress, a sock, a pair of pants, a shoe, an undergarment, and a jacket. Furthermore, textile fabrics in other products, such as draperies, sheets, towels, pillows, and stuffed fabric articles (e.g., toys), may be dried in the laundry dryer 10.
As illustrated in
A rotatable drum 28 may be disposed within the interior of the cabinet 12 between opposing stationary rear and front bulkheads 30, 32, which collectively define a treating chamber 34, for treating laundry 36, having an open face that may be selectively closed by the door 26. The drum 28 may include at least one lifter (not shown). In most dryers, there may be multiple lifters. The lifters may be located along the inner surface of the drum 28 defining an interior circumference of the drum 28. The lifters may facilitate movement of the laundry 36 within the drum 28 as the drum 28 rotates.
The drum 28 may be operably coupled with a motor 54 to selectively rotate the drum 28 during a drying cycle. The coupling of the motor 54 to the drum 28 may be direct or indirect. As illustrated, an indirect coupling may include a belt 56 coupling an output shaft of the motor 54 to a wheel/pulley on the drum 28. A direct coupling may include the output shaft of the motor 54 coupled to a hub of the drum 28.
A dispenser 57 may be provided to the laundry dryer 10 to dispense a treating chemistry during a drying cycle. As illustrated, the dispenser 57 may be located in the interior of the cabinet 12 such that the treating chemistry may be dispensed, although other locations are also possible. The dispenser 57 may include a reservoir (not shown) of treating chemistry that is releasably coupled to a dispenser 57, which dispenses the treating chemistry from the reservoir to the treating chamber 34. The treating chemistry may be any type of aid for treating laundry, and non-limiting examples include, but are not limited to fabric softeners, sanitizers, de-wrinklers, and chemicals for imparting desired properties to the laundry, including stain resistance, fragrance (e.g., perfumes), insect repellency, and UV protection.
An air system may be provided to the laundry dryer 10. The air system supplies air to the treating chamber 34 and exhausts air from the treating chamber 34. The supplied air may be heated or not. The air system may have an air supply portion that may form in part a supply conduit 38, which has one end open to ambient air 64 via a rear vent 37 and another end fluidly coupled to an inlet grill 40, which may be in fluid communication with the treating chamber 34. A heating element 42 may lie within the supply conduit 38 and may be operably coupled to and controlled by a controller 14. If the heating element 42 is turned on, supply air flow 58 is heated prior to entering the drum 28.
The air system may further include an air exhaust portion that may be formed in part by an exhaust conduit 44. A lint trap 45 may be provided as the inlet from the treating chamber 34 to the exhaust conduit 44. A blower 46 operably coupled to and controlled by the controller 14 may be fluidly coupled to the exhaust conduit 44. Operation of the blower 46 draws air into the treating chamber 34 as well as exhausts air as an exhaust air flow 59 from the treating chamber 34 through the exhaust conduit 44. The exhaust conduit 44 may be fluidly coupled with a household exhaust duct or exhausting the air from the treating chamber 34 to the outside the laundry dryer 10.
The air system may further include various sensor and other components, such as an inlet air temperature sensor 47 and a thermostat 48, which may be coupled to the supply conduit 38 in which the heating element 42 may be positioned. The inlet air temperature sensor 47 and the thermostat 48 may be operably coupled to each other. Alternatively, the inlet air temperature sensor 47 may be coupled to the supply conduit 38 at or near to the inlet grill 40. Regardless of its location, the inlet air temperature sensor 47 may be used to aid in determining the inlet air temperature. An outlet air temperature sensor 51 and thermal fuse 49 may be coupled to the exhaust conduit 44, with the exhaust air temperature sensor 51 being used to determine the outlet air temperature. A moisture sensor 50 may be positioned in the interior of the treating chamber 34 to monitor the amount of moisture of the laundry in the treating chamber 34. A laundry temperature sensor 60 may be positioned in the treating chamber 34 to monitor the temperature of the laundry.
The inlet air temperature sensor 47 and the outlet air temperature sensor 51 may be thermistor devices or any other known temperature sensing device. All objects with any thermal energy emit a black body radiation. For the laundry in the laundry treating appliance 10, the radiation may be in the infrared (IR) range. The laundry temperature sensor 60, therefore, may be an infrared (IR) sensor or any other known laundry temperature sensing devices. The IR sensor 60 may be positioned and oriented in a manner such that the IR sensor 60 may view the laundry contained within the treating chamber 34 and sense the IR radiation being emitted from the laundry. The temperature of the laundry may be determined from the peak frequency of the IR radiation emitted from the laundry or from the magnitude of the IR radiation emitted from the laundry. The IR sensor 60 may in particular sense wavelengths between 8 and 12 micrometers (μm), corresponding to a range of laundry temperatures between about 241° K and 362° K. When a peak wavelength is detected by the IR sensor 60, the corresponding temperature may be determined by applying Wien's Displacement Law. The laundry temperature sensor 60 may be a thermopile, a narrow gap semiconductor photodetector, a quantum well IR photodetector, or any other known types of laundry temperature sensors 60.
The various electronic components of the laundry dryer 10 including the user interface panel 16, the heating element 42, the inlet temperature sensor 47, the outlet temperature sensor 51, the humidity sensor 50, the motor 54, the blower 46, and the laundry temperature sensor 60 may be communicatively coupled to a controller 14 via electrical communication lines 62. The controller 14 may be a microprocessor, microcontroller, field programmable gate array (FPGA), application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or any other known circuit for control of electronic components. The controller 14 may contain an electronic memory 15 for storing information from the various components.
The controller 14 may also store in its memory, the various cycles of operation in the form of executable instructions and corresponding data tables for controlling the operation of the various components to implement the various cycles of operation. During the implementation of the cycle of operation, the controller may receive various data as input from the various sensors and other components. In particular to the current invention, the laundry temperature and the exhaust air temperature data may be received and processed by the controller to determine an end of drying for the laundry load. It has been discovered that certain trends of the laundry temperature signal and the exhaust air temperature indicate when a laundry load is dry, especially for a predetermined load size. These trends may be more accurate than the data obtained with the traditional moisture sensor data.
The filtered moisture sensor data 74 is also referred to as wet hits data based on the conductivity of the laundry and is used commonly in current laundry dryers to determine the point in time where laundry within the laundry dryer 10 is dry. However, filtered moisture sensor data 74 has several deficiencies including susceptibility to electromagnetic interference (EMI), such as 60 Hz line noise, switching noise, and electrostatic discharge (ESD) noise. Moisture sensor signals 74 also exhibit high levels of variability based on the wetness of the laundry, type of laundry, and the laundry material. For example, as shown in
For the medium load, the laundry temperature 72 is initially substantially lower than the exhaust air temperature 70 and converges toward the exhaust air temperature 70 while the laundry is wet. When the laundry 36 is dry or near dry, the laundry temperature 72 may rise to the exhaust air temperature 70 as indicated by the dotted line at about 38 minutes in to the drying cycle. This dry declaration point may be 15 minutes or more after the filtered moisture sensor data 74 no longer provides any useful information. If the laundry is allowed to continue to dry beyond the dry declaration point, then the laundry temperature 72 may rise above and diverge from the exhaust air temperature 70.
The oscillatory nature, or the sinusoidal variation, of both the exhaust air temperature 70 and laundry temperature 72 may be a result of the way the heating element 42 is controlled by the controller 14. The heating element 42 is typically energized and de-energized by the controller based upon the exhaust air temperature 70 measurement to maintain the exhaust air temperature 70 within a predefined range. In other words, when the exhaust air temperature 70 reaches an upper limit of the predefined range, the heating element 42 is de-energized by the controller 14 to effect a decrease in both the laundry temperature 72 and the exhaust air temperature 70. Similarly, when the exhaust air temperature 70 reaches a lower limit of the predefined range, the heating element 42 is re-energized by the controller 14 to effect an increase in both the laundry temperature 72 and the exhaust air temperature 70. The repeated energizing and de-energizing of the heating element 42 results in the oscillatory temperature measurements 70 and 72.
The relative behavior of the exhaust air temperature 70 and the laundry temperature 72 may be explained by considering the phenomena of blow-by air, the heat capacity of water, and evaporative cooling of the wet laundry 36. The heating element 42 heats the supply air flow 58 within the inlet conduit 38, prior to entering the treating chamber 34. Some of the heated supply air flow 58 entering the treating chamber 34 interacts with the laundry 36 contained therein to transfer thermal energy, or heat, to the laundry before exhausting from the treating chamber 34 as exhaust air flow 59. The transfer of thermal energy may be by conductive heating as the heated supply air flow 58 heats up the drum 28, which in turn heats up the laundry that comes in contact with the drum 28. The laundry may further be heated by convection heating via the heated supply air flow 58 contacting the laundry and transferring thermal energy. The laundry 36 may also be heated by radiative heating as the heated inlet air 58 may radiate thermal energy, some of which may be absorbed by the laundry.
For a medium size laundry load, some amount of the heated supply air flow 58 may blow through the treating chamber 34 and exhaust as exhaust air flow 59 without transferring thermal energy to the laundry 36 contained within the treating chamber 34. This air may be referred to as blow-by air, as it blows by without significantly interacting with or transferring thermal energy to the laundry 36 or the drum 28. This blow-by air is approximately the same temperature as the heated supply air, as the blow-by air does not lose significant amounts of thermal energy. For a medium size load, there is some amount of blow-by air in the exhaust air flow 59 and therefore the exhaust air flow 59 has a higher exhaust air temperature 70 than the laundry temperature for a wet medium sized laundry load 36. At the same time, the wet load of laundry 36 may stay cold relative to the exhaust air flow 59 due to both evaporative cooling of the laundry 36 and high heat capacity, or high specific heat of the water contained in the wet laundry 36. As a result, while the laundry is wet, the laundry temperature 72 may be is less than the exhaust air temperature 70 for a medium size load.
As the medium load laundry 36 dries, there may be several phenomena that cause the laundry temperature 72 to converge with the exhaust air temperature 70. As the moisture content in the laundry decreases, there may be reduced evaporative cooling of the laundry 36 compared to when the laundry 36 is wet. Additionally, the wet laundry 36 is a composite of fabric and water and as the moisture, or water content, of the laundry reduces, the effective specific heat of the laundry also reduces. This is because the heat capacity of water is greater than fabric. In other words, as the laundry 36 dries, less energy is required to effect a change in the laundry temperature 72. Finally, as the laundry 36 dries, it may have a tendency to not clump or ball up as much as wet laundry. Instead dryer laundry 36 may have an increased surface area relative to wet laundry, thereby increasing its interaction with the supply air flow 58 and thereby reducing the blow-by air.
Additionally, the fabric type of the laundry 36 may also affect the relative behavior of the exhaust air temperature 70 and the laundry temperature 72. Different fabric types, such as different materials, weaves, thread counts, density, treatments/coatings may allow a different levels of evaporation of moisture. For example, towels may allow greater levels of evaporation than jeans. The evaporation rates of the laundry 36 may influence the relative magnitude and relative trend of the exhaust air temperature 70 and the laundry temperature 72.
For a small and wet laundry load, there may be a greater amount of blow-by air compared to a larger size load, as there is less laundry surface area with which the heated supply air flow 58 can interact and transfer thermal energy to the laundry 36 or the drum 28. As a result, while the laundry is wet, the there may be a greater difference between the exhaust air temperature 80 and the laundry temperature 82 for a small load as compared to a larger load. When the laundry is considered dry or near-dry, the laundry temperature 82 may rise to or above the exhaust air temperature 80. This may happen because the exhaust air temperature 80 may be determined by the exhaust air temperature sensor 51 downstream of the treating chamber 34, such as in the exhaust conduit 44. As a result, the air that may have been at the same temperature as the laundry within the treating chamber may lose some thermal energy as it travels through the exhaust conduit 44, resulting in a lower temperature measured at the exhaust air temperature sensor 51.
When the large laundry load dries, the laundry temperature 92 may exceed and diverge from the exhaust air temperature 90. Unlike the small laundry load, the large laundry temperature does not initially begin substantially below the exhaust air temperature. Instead, the laundry temperature corresponds with exhaust air temperature until the divergence. Therefore, there may be an initial time period when the laundry temperature 92 corresponds with the exhaust air temperature and does not diverge from each other. There may be a second time period when the laundry temperature 92 increases and diverges from the exhaust air temperature 90. The relative behavior and relative magnitude of the laundry temperature 92 and the exhaust air temperature 90 may be indicative of the moisture content of the laundry 36. In the case of the large load the laundry may be considered dry when the laundry temperature 92 exceeds the exhaust air temperature 90 by a threshold value. For example, the threshold value may be 15° as indicated by the dotted line at about 58 minutes in to the drying cycle.
In the method as disclosed herein, the relative magnitude of the laundry temperature and the exhaust air temperature is used to determine if a load of laundry 36 is dry in the treating chamber 34. In one aspect, the difference between the laundry temperature and the exhaust air temperature is compared to a threshold value to determine if the laundry is dry. As seen in
The sequence of steps depicted is for illustrative purposes only, and is not meant to limit the method 100 in any way as it is understood that the steps may proceed in a different logical or sequential order and different, additional, overlapping, or intervening steps may be included without detracting from the invention.
In one aspect, the threshold value may be satisfied at 108 when the difference is greater than the threshold value. This means that when the laundry temperature minus the exhaust air temperature at any particular point in time is greater than the threshold value, the load may be considered dry. Alternatively, the threshold value may be satisfied at 108 when the difference is less than the threshold value.
In another aspect, the controller 14 may save a time series of the difference data in the electronic memory 15. Such data may be saved to determine a moving average of the difference data to filter out the fluctuations in the difference data primarily resulting form the fluctuations in the laundry temperature measurements. Such a moving average or any other mathematical smoothing operation may be used for the purpose of filtering out the fluctuations in the difference data for comparison to the threshold value.
In yet another aspect, the controller 14 may save a time series of the laundry temperature data and the exhaust air temperature data in the electronic memory 15. The two time series temperature data sets saved in the electronic memory 15 may be used to implement a phase shift, or a relative time shift when calculating the difference in the difference between the two temperature measurements. This may be done to get a difference based upon points in the both time series data that correspond to each other. Any given sampling at a point in time may not produce data points in the two time series data that correspond if the exhaust air flow temperature is sampled much further downstream than the laundry temperature.
As discussed in conjunction with
The first, second, and third qualitative load sizes may be a small, medium, and large load size, respectively. The first load size may be 3 lbs weight or less, the second load size may be between 3 and 8 lbs., and the third load size may be 8 lbs. or more. For the first load size, the threshold value at 166 may be 0° F., for the second load size the threshold value at 170 may be 8° F., and for the third load size, the threshold value at 174 may be 15° F. Alternatively, the threshold may be the same for all the load sizes. In such a case, the threshold may be 5° F. for all the load sizes.
The load size at 162 may be determined by using known method such as motor torque measurement or load mass estimation (LME) techniques that use supply air temperature as measured by the supply air temperature sensor 47 and exhaust air temperature as measured by the exhaust air temperature sensor 51 near the beginning of the drying cycle, such as during the first two minutes of the drying cycle. Such LME techniques may determine the load size by comparing the slopes of the supply and exhaust air temperatures.
In the method of determining the threshold 160 of
The method disclosed herein for determining when a laundry load is dry to effect an end of the cycle has several advantages compared to prior art methods, such as moisture sensor based methods. The laundry temperature sensor provides useful information about the temperature and thereby the moisture content of the laundry much longer in to the laundry dryer cycle time and at much lower moisture content levels compared to moisture sensor and wet hits based methods. Additionally, the laundry temperature sensor is not prone to EMI as the moisture sensor, resulting in more reliable moisture content data. The use of a laundry temperature sensor may also allow for removing the moisture sensor from the laundry dryer, which may result in cost savings. The use of a laundry temperature sensor may further allow for removing the supply air temperature sensor from the laundry dryer, which may again result in cost savings.
While the invention has been specifically described in connection with certain specific embodiments thereof, it is to be understood that this is by way of illustration and not of limitation. Reasonable variation and modification are possible within the scope of the forgoing disclosure and drawings without departing from the spirit of the invention which is defined in the appended claims.
