GB729949A - Improvements in method and apparatus for treating and finishing textile articles - Google Patents

Abstract

<PICT:0729949/IV (c)/1> In apparatus for the treatment of textile articles, in particular nylon stockings, with vaporous media at a pressure in excess of atmospheric and a correspondingly elevated temperature, the articles are passed in succession through a number of compartments within a pressure-tight chamber wherein they are subjected to different stages of the treatment. Thus they may be subjected to an initial pre-setting operation with steam under pressure and then to successive scouring, rinsing, and dyeing operations during which part of the pre-setting operation may also take place. The apparatus comprises a long chamber 32 divided into a number of compartments and having separate entrance and exit chambers 31, 33 which may be sealed both from the outside atmosphere and from the central chamber by means of pressure-tight doors, 37 and 52 respectively. In the operation of the apparatus, the stockings are arranged upon conventional boards mounted upon trucks 34 which pass in succession through the chamber 32. Considering the sequence of operations, a truck carrying boarded stockings is propelled by a piston arrangement to run upon rails into the entrance chamber 31, the door 37 of which is open while the door 52 is closed. The door 37 is then closed and steam is admitted into the chamber 31 until the pressure therein is equal to that within chamber 32. Door 52 is then opened and the truck is propelled by a further piston arrangement into the central chamber 32, suitable gaps being arranged in the railway to allow the doors 37 and 52 to open and close. The door 52 is then closed, the chamber 31 evacuated of steam, the door 37 opened and the process repeated. Meanwhile the truck 34 is engaged by members on a moving chain which draw it through the chamber where it is subjected to the scouring, rinsing and dyeing operations, the initial part of the pre-setting operation having already been effected in chamber 31. When a truck reaches the end of the chamber 32 it is disengaged from the chain (and also from the succeeding truck to which it is latched during its passage through the chamber) and then propelled in a manner similar to that already described into the exit chamber 33 and thence through the outer door on to a further truck 154 running on a railway 156. The truck 154 is propelled from its full-line to its broken-line position in which it is in alignment with an external set of rails 166. The truck 34 is propelled on to the rails 166 passing through a drying chamber 188 in doing so, and it is then taken up by a slow-moving driving chain during which time the stockings are removed from the boards and fresh stockings arranged thereon. The truck is then transferred (at a point about half-way along the rails 166) to a fast-moving chain which carries it on to a transversely moving truck 179 similar to truck 154 and running upon rails 181. This truck is then moved transversely to position the truck 34 so that it may be propelled once again into the entrance chamber 31. The trucks 154 and 179 are moved to and fro between their full-line and broken-line positions so that shortly after despatching one truck 34 on to the rails 166 or into the chamber 31 respectively they are ready to receive the next truck from the chamber 33 on the rails 166. Details of chamber 32. The chamber 32 is divided into a number of compartments by means of transversely arranged members 122, 123. A further member co-planar with these, is bolted thereto, and has a gap therein so shaped that the boarded stockings just pass through it. The rim of the gap preferably carries a rubber gasket to prevent injury to the stockings in their passage through the chamber. The plates 122, 123, the further plate and the boarded stockings thus provide a division between the separate compartments sufficient to keep the treatment media, which are all at the same super-atmospheric pressure, separate. The condensed media run into the lower portions of the respective compartments whence they are taken off to tanks for subsequent re-use.