Heat and moisture transfer performance of thin cotton fabric under impingement drying

To investigate the drying characteristics of thin cotton fabric for reducing the energy consumption during the heat setting process, a two-dimensional heat and moisture transfer model considering lateral heat and moisture transmission under the impingement drying condition was developed in this study. The curves of the variation in fabric temperature and moisture content over time were obtained and the results indicate that the drying rate increases with the decrease in the moisture content in the fabric. In addition, non-uniform distributions of temperature and moisture on the fabric over time were obtained. The drying time per unit area on the fabric was found to increase with time. Further, experiments were conducted to test the heat and moisture transfer performance of the fabric, and the experimental results agree reasonably well with the calculations.