Optimum design of the injection duct system of a stenter machine

Stenter machines are used for drying fabrics in the textile industry and have a heater, injection duct system, and fans inside a chamber. The injection duct system has ducts and air-injecting holes. Plane-type injection duct systems were investigated to obtain uniform airflow at the air-injecting holes. The flowfield of the injection duct systems was computed using ANSYS CFX with different heights of the duct end and different shapes for the air-injecting holes. There was a high mass flow rate at the air-injecting holes and high airflow circulation inside both plane-type and mountain-type ducts at the ends. The height of the duct end was varied between 40 mm and 160 mm. The injection duct systems were analyzed with four different shapes of air-injecting holes. The circular and elliptical holes had lower standard deviations of the mass flow rate than other shapes. Relatively uniform mass flow rates were obtained in the plane-type and mountain-type duct systems when the height of the duct end was 40 mm and the shape of the air-injecting holes was circular or elliptical. The developed injection duct systems were improved by obtaining a uniform mass flow rate at the air-injecting holes. A stenter prototype was fabricated with the developed injection duct system to confirm the numerical results. The developed injection duct system had better performance than the original system.