title: Ultrasonic washing of textiles.
abstract: We present the results of experimental investigation of ultrasonic washing of textiles. The results demonstrate that cavitation bubbles oscillating in acoustic fields are capable of removing soils from textiles. Since the washing performance is mitigated in a large washing bath when using an ultrasonic transducer, we propose a novel washing scheme by combining the ultrasonic vibration with a conventional washing method utilizing kinetic energy of textiles. It is shown that the hybrid washing scheme achieves a markedly enhanced performance up to 15% in comparison with the conventional washing machine. This work can contribute to developing a novel laundry machine with reduced washing time and waste water.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-744, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Junhee
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-744, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Tae-Hong
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-744, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: hyk@snu.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Ho-Young
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sogang University, Seoul 121-742, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: wonjungkim@sogang.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Wonjung
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kim
keywords: Acoustic cavitation; Textile washing; Ultrasonic cleaning