Experimental investigation on industrial drying process of cotton yarn bobbins: energy consumption and drying time

In the textile industry, the drying process is a time consuming and energy expensive operation that influences strongly the cost of the textile finishing operations. For this reason, the study of innovative techniques plays a key role to decrease the energy consumption, the costs and the environmental impact. After a first mechanical process, the moisture is removed from yarn fibers by a thermal convection dryer that delivers hot air through the material. In this study, the drying process of cotton yarn bobbins is experimentally analyzed. With this aim, an experimental test rig was developed based on the geometry of industrial dryers. The influence of the drying air path and the air working conditions was assessed by performing tests with different configurations, temperatures and pressures. The results were analyzed in terms of drying time and energy consumption as the optimum drying condition is a trade-off between these parameters.