The document discusses the inner workings of a washing machine. It describes how washing machines have heavy components like a concrete block and steel tubs to balance the machine. It also explains the pulley and cable system that supports the heavy parts while allowing movement. Additionally, it details how the pump can reverse directions to either circulate water during washing or drain it during spinning through use of a reversible motor.
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The document discusses the inner workings of a washing machine. It describes how washing machines have heavy components like a concrete block and steel tubs to balance the machine. It also explains the pulley and cable system that supports the heavy parts while allowing movement. Additionally, it details how the pump can reverse directions to either circulate water during washing or drain it during spinning through use of a reversible motor.
The document discusses the inner workings of a washing machine. It describes how washing machines have heavy components like a concrete block and steel tubs to balance the machine. It also explains the pulley and cable system that supports the heavy parts while allowing movement. Additionally, it details how the pump can reverse directions to either circulate water during washing or drain it during spinning through use of a reversible motor.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
The document discusses the inner workings of a washing machine. It describes how washing machines have heavy components like a concrete block and steel tubs to balance the machine. It also explains the pulley and cable system that supports the heavy parts while allowing movement. Additionally, it details how the pump can reverse directions to either circulate water during washing or drain it during spinning through use of a reversible motor.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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The Washing Machine
Washing machine has probably washed
your clothes hundreds of times, but have you ever wondered … What's inside that trusty washing machine?
How does it spin the clothes so fast without
leaking water? Why is it so heavy?
How does the agitator switch directions?
We'll venture inside a washing machine to
answer all of these questions and more! Contents Introduction History Inside a washing machine Drive mechanism Inside a gear box Controls Working Spinning mechanism Bicycle driven washing machine Introduction A washing machine, or washer, is a machine designed to clean laundry, such as clothing, towels and sheets. The term is mostly applied only to machines that use water as the primary cleaning solution. All washer machines work by using mechanical energy, thermal energy, and chemical action. History Clothing has been hand-washed for thousands of years, by flushing water through the fabric to remove loose dirt, rubbing with soap to remove oils and stains, and applying fragrances to cover odours. For particularly dirty clothing covered with mud or dirt, it was necessary to constantly rub and flex the cloth to break apart solids and help the soap penetrate through thick, dry, or sticky layers of soil on the cloth. At first this was done by pounding or rubbing the clothing with rocks in a river, and later developed into the corrugated wash board. The earliest washing "machine" was the scrub board invented in 1797. American, James King patented the first washing machine to use a drum in 1851, the drum made King's machine resemble a modern machine, however it was still hand powered. In 1858, Hamilton Smith patented the rotary washing machine. In 1874, William Blackstone of Indiana built a birthday present for his wife. It was a machine which removed and washed away dirt from clothes. The first washing machines designed for convenient use in the home. Mighty Thor- The Thor was the first electric- powered washing machine. Introduced in 1908 by the Hurley Machine Company of Chicago, Illinois, the Thor washing machine was invented Alva J. Fisher. The Thor was a drum type washing machine with a galvanized tub and an electric motor. A patent was issued on August 9th 1910. The Whirlpool Corporation started in 1911 as the Upton Machine Co., founded in St. Joseph, Michigan, to produce electric motor-driven wringer washers. Operating a washing machine is pretty simple.. There are a few things to decide before you start your load of clothes, such as how big the load is what temperature the water will be for the wash and rinse cycles, how the machine should agitate and how long the cycles should last. After you fill the tub with clothes, the machine fills the tub with water, and then stirs the clothes around using an agitator. After some time agitating, the washer drains the water and then spins the clothes to remove most of the water. Then, it refills, and agitates the clothes some more to rinse out the soap. Then it drains and spins again. Inside a washing machine CONSTRUCTION & WORKING- Block of Concrete: If we take a look under the washing machine, you'll see what makes it so heavy.
The concrete is there to
balance the equally heavy electric motor, which drives a very heavy gearbox that is attached to the steel inner tub. There are lots of heavy components in a washing machine. Two Steel Tubs: The inner tub is the one that holds the clothes. It has an agitator in the middle of it, and the sides are perforated with holes so that when the tub spins, the water can leave. The outer tub, which seals in all the water, is bolted to the body of the washer. Because the inner tub vibrates and shakes during the wash cycle, it has to be mounted in a way that lets it move around without banging into other parts of the machine. Inner tub with agitator in the middle Cable-and-pulley support system The inner tub is attached to the gearbox, which is attached to the black metal frame. This frame holds the motor, gearbox and the concrete weight. There are a total of three pulleys, so that if one side of the frame moves up, the other side moves down. This system supports the weight of the heavy components, letting them move in such a way as not to shake the entire machine. Black frame w/o Gearbox or Tubs But, if all of these parts are just hanging by cables, why don't they swing around all the time? A laundry machine has a damping system that uses friction to absorb some of the force from the vibrations. In each of the four corners of the machine is a mechanism that works a little like a disc brake. The part attached to the washer frame is a spring. It squeezes two pads against the metal plate that is attached to the black frame. Plumbing The plumbing on the washing machine has several jobs:
•It fills the washing machine with
the correct temperature of water. •It re-circulates the wash water from the bottom of the wash tub back to the top (during the wash cycle). • It pumps water out the drain (during the spin cycle)
The washing machine has
hookups for two water lines on the back, one for hot water and one for cold. These lines are hooked up to the body of a solenoid valve. Before the hose releases water into the wash tub, it sends it through an anti- Anti-siphon device siphon device. This device prevents wash water from being sucked back into the water supply lines. You can see that the white, plastic device has a big opening that allows air in. The water from the hose shoots into the device and turns downward, exiting through the tube on the other end. But while it is inside the device, it is open to the atmosphere. This means that if there were suction on the water supply line, it could not possibly suck any water in from the washing machine; it would get only air. Water inlet & overflow port The picture above shows the inlet through which water enters the washing machine. The nozzle to the right is an overflow port, which is connected to a pipe that dumps water out the bottom of the washing machine (onto your floor), instead of letting it overflow the tub and possibly get the motor wet. Pump The rest of the plumbing system, the part that re- circulates the water and the part that drains it, involves the pump. This pump is actually two separate pumps in one: The bottom half of the pump is hooked up to the drain line, while the top half re- circulates the wash water. So how does the pump decide whether to pump the water out the drain line or back into the wash tub? This is where one of the neat tricks of the washing machine comes in: The motor that drives the pump can reverse direction. It spins one way when the washer is running a wash cycle and recirculating the water; and it spins the other way when the washer is doing a spin cycle and draining the water. If you look carefully, you can see the vanes of the bottom layer of the pump. When water enters the pump's inlet, these vanes, or fins, push the water around and force it back out of the pump by way of the outlet. This type of pump can operate in both directions -- which port is the inlet and which is the outlet depends on which direction the pump is spinning in. If the pump spins clockwise, the bottom pump sucks water from the bottom of the wash tub and forces it out the drain hose, and the top pump tries to suck air from the top of the wash tub and force it back up through the bottom, so that no water recirculation takes place. If the pump spins counter-clockwise, the top pump sucks water from the bottom of the tub and pumps it back up to the top, and the bottom pump tries to pump water from the drain hose back into the bottom of the tub. There is actually a little bit of water in the drain hose, but the pump doesn't have the power to force much of it back into the tub. There is also a mechanism in which the pump does not spin at all. The washer just churns the water that is in the tub without recirculating it. For this situation, the pump is hooked up to the motor by way of a clutch. Flexible coupling hooks the clutch up to the pump. On the bottom of the clutch is a set of four teeth. When the electromagnet engages, it raises an arm up into these teeth, which stops them from rotating. Once the teeth are stopped, the clutch starts to engage. After a couple of revolutions, it locks up to the motor shaft and the pump starts to turn with the motor. Lets take a look at the drain hose in the picture -- notice how it loops all the way to the top of the machine before heading back down to the drain. Because one end of the hose is hooked up to the bottom of the tub and the other is open to the atmosphere, the level of water inside the drain hose will be the same as the level inside the tub. If the drain hose didn't go all the way up to the top of the machine, then the tub could never fill all the way. As soon as the water reaches the bend in the hose, it goes out the drain. Drive Mechanism The drive mechanism on a washing machine has two jobs: To agitate the clothes, moving them back and forth inside the wash tub. To spin the entire wash tub, forcing the water out. There is a gearbox that handles these two jobs. If the motor spins in one You can see the pump mounted to the direction, the gearbox outer tub, and the gearbox, which holds agitates; if it spins the the inner tub. (the black frame has other way, the gearbox been removed) goes into spin cycle. A piece of rubber seals the outer tub to the gearbox. The inner tub has been removed from the outer tub. It is resting The inner tub bolts to the on the gearbox, three holes in the flange of and the plastic agitator is visible the gearbox. in the centre of You can see from the the tub. buildup of crud on top of the gearbox that it has been exposed to wash water for many years. A hollow tube extends from the centre of the gearbox. Inside this tube is a splined shaft-the spline on top of the shaft hooks into the plastic agitator GEAR BOX with seal cut and inner tub removed Inside the Gear Box PRINCIPLE- If you spin the pulley on the gearbox one way, the inner shaft turns slowly back and forth, reversing direction about every half- revolution. If you spin the pulley the other way, the flange spins at high speed, spinning the whole tub with it. Here you can see a gear with a link attached to it. This link is just like the one attached to an old steam train wheel -- as the gear (along with the link) turns, it pushes another pie- shaped piece of gear back and forth. This pie-shaped gear engages a small gear on the inner shaft, which leads to the spline. In addition to rotating the inner shaft in alternating directions, there are other gears within the system that provide a gear reduction to slow the rotation. Because the motor spins only at one speed, spin-cycle speed, a gear reduction is necessary to facilitate the slower wash cycle. When the washer goes into spin cycle, the whole mechanism locks up, causing everything to spin at the same speed as the input, which is hooked up to the motor. The interesting thing here is that when the motor spins the gearbox in one direction, the agitator runs, and when it spins it the other way, the whole machine locks up. How does it do this? In the figure above, notice the gear with the angled teeth. There is also a smaller gear with angled teeth behind the big one in the foreground. These are the only two gears with angled teeth. Depending on which way the gears are spinning, the angle on the teeth will tend to force the inner gear to slide either to the left or to the right inside the gearbox. If it slides to the left, it engages a mechanism that locks up the gearbox. You can see a small notch in the outer shaft. This notch is hollow, and is attached to the shaft with the small helical gear When the small gear moves, it moves this outer shaft with it, and the small notch engages the single tooth that is fixed to the lockup mechanism. When the gearbox is locked up, both the inner shaft, which drives the agitator, and the outer shaft, which drives the tub, spin at the same speed as the input pulley. Controls The cycle switch has the job of determining how long the different parts of the cycle last. Inside the switch is a little motor equipped with a very large gear reduction that makes the control dial turn very slowly. Cycle Switch In the top half of the switch, there is a set of six contacts. These are actuated by the small pieces of metal in the plastic arm on the dial. As the dial spins, bumps on the dial raise and lower the six metal pieces, which close and open the contacts in the top half of the switch. Inside the Cycle Switch If you look at the shape of the bumps, you can see why the dial on the washer spins only one way: The front side of the bumps has a slope that raises up the metal pieces gradually; but the back side doesn't, so if you try to turn the knob backward, the metal pieces wedge against the bumps. This bumpy plastic disk is really the software program that runs your washing machine. The length of the bumps determines how long each part of the cycle lasts, and the length of the space between bumps determines how long the machine pauses before moving on to its next task. Speed & Temp Control These switches control the speed of the motor and determine which of the hot/cold water supply solenoids will open during the wash and the rinse cycles. If hot is selected, only the hot water solenoid valve will open when the machine fills. If warm is selected, both will open; and if cold is selected, only the cold water solenoid valve will open. The speed/temperature control is pretty simple. Each plastic rocker engages two sets of contacts, either opening or closing the circuit connected to those contacts. For each switch, there is always one closed and one open set of contacts. Inside the speed/temperature control Water level control • This switch controls how high the tub fills with water. • The level sensor uses a pressure switch to detect the water level in the tub. • The big end of the hose Water level control switch connects to the bottom of the tub, while the small end connects to the switch. • As the water level in the tub rises, water rises in the hose also; but the air in the hose is trapped, so as the water rises, the air is compressed. Water level control switch plumbing Inside the housing of this switch is a little piston. The pressure in the hose pushes the piston up. When it is raised far enough, it pops up and closes an electrical contact. This set point, where the contact is lost, is adjustable, and in the picture you can see the cam mechanism that is connected to the adjuster knob on the control panel of the washer. As the cam turns, it presses a spring against the cylinder, making it harder for the cylinder to pop up. Inside the water level control switch This means that the water level will have to rise some more before the pressure in the hose will be high enough to trigger the switch. Working: STEPS- 1. Setting the programme controller and switching on the machine activates the door interlock: once the door is shut, it cannot be opened until the programme is finished. 2. As soon as the door is locked, the programme begins. The inlet valves are opened, allowing water to flow into the drum. On the way, it passes through the detergent tray, collecting powder or liquid. 3. The water entering the drum compresses air in a pressure chamber. This pressure is relayed along a flexible pressure tube to a pressure switch, which shuts the inlet valves at the programmed water level. 4. The pump is switched off and the cold valve opens to start the rinse cycle. A repeated sequence begins: the tub filling to the programmed level, the drum revolving and the water being pumped out. 5. At the end of the final rinse the spin cycle starts. The motor is switched on, revolving the drum at high speed. At the same time the pump is switched on to remove the water coming out of the clothes. 6. The motor is switched off. After a delay to allow the drum to stop spinning, the door lock is disengaged. The programme is now finished and the door can be opened. 7.The pump is switched off and the cold valve opens to start the rinse cycle. A repeated sequence begins: the tub filling to the programmed level, the drum revolving and the water being pumped out. 8. At the end of the final rinse the spin cycle starts. The motor is switched on, revolving the drum at high speed. At the same time the pump is switched on to remove the water coming out of the clothes. 9. The motor is switched off. After a delay to allow the drum to stop spinning, the door lock is disengaged. The programme is now finished and the door can be opened. Spinning mechanism- Euler’s 1st and 2nd laws can explain the dynamics of a washing machine spin cycle. ∑ Fc = ∑ mIaI 1st law ∑ Mp = r cp x (∑ mIaI) 2nd law In Euler’s 1st law the force is what pushes your clothes to the exterior of the basket then the force pushes the water in your clothes out of your clothes and through the holes in the washing machine. ∑ Fc = m[ac + (αb/g x rci) + (wb/g x wb/g x rci)] ∑ Fc = m[ rciwb/g2 ]î
If the load is balanced, i.e. all the point masses at the exterior of the basket are equal. Then the ∑ Fc = 0 due to the fact that the forces induced by point masses at 180 o from each other will cancel each other out. ∑ Fc = F1 + F2 = 0 Now let us suppose that the point masses on the outside of the basket are not equal. This will lead to the Sigma Fc <=> 0. This in turn leads to a moment around the base of the basket, which causes the basket to wobble . This can be seen from the drawing. . ∑ Fc = ∑ mIaI <=> 0 ∑ Mp = ∑ rCP x ∑ mIaI Now for a self-balancing washing machine springs are inserted in a circular pattern around a point lower than ‘P’. These springs create forces and moments that counteract any forces and moments that could be created at ‘P’ by an unbalanced load. Bicycle driven washing machine Conclusion-