Dehydration simulator using Monte Carlo approach for front-loading washer-dryer

Abstract

This paper verifies the validity of the prediction model of clothes behavior by using random number. Outer tub of a front-loading washer-dryer is supported by the vibration isolation structure because the imbalance of clothes inside the drum causes vibration in dehydration. The imbalance beyond an acceptable level is modified by the dehydration control system to reduce the vibration. However, the modification of imbalance causes an extension of operation time. Therefore, it is important to estimate the numbers of modification in initial design stage in order to reduce vibration and operation time. In this study, dehydration simulator was proposed to estimate the numbers of modification using Monte Carlo approach. This simulator consists of three steps; the first step is to generate random numbers following the probability distribution of clothes behaviour obtained by experiment, the second step is to count the random numbers beyond threshold as the numbers of modification, and the third step is to repeat previous steps and to obtain the average number of modification. As a result, the maximum absolute difference of the average number of modification between experiment and prediction was 1.6 times. In addition, the relationship between the threshold and the average number of modification requires about 80 days to be obtained in experiment, but it is shown that the relationship was predicted within a day in proposal method. These results would provide the validity of the proposed approach.

Keywords

• vibration control
• probabilistic method
• product design
• washing machine