Hydroextraction: G-Force, Residual Moisture & Drying Load

The formula

This is the expression the tool evaluates. Every term is named underneath, with the unit it must be supplied in.

How the result is derived

Step by step, from the values you type to the figure on screen.

1. The 9 inputs are read from the form on every keystroke: Basket Diameter, Extraction Speed, Motor Power, Extraction Time, Dry Mass of Load, Moisture Before Extraction, Residual Moisture After Extraction, Dryer Thermal Efficiency and Energy Price.
2. Each value is checked against the accepted range in the input table below. A value outside its range stops the calculation rather than producing a misleading figure — the results blank out and a message appears.
3. The validated values are substituted into the expression above, which resolves Return on Extraction together with every supporting figure in one pass — no value is carried over from a previous entry.
4. The supporting outputs — G-Force at the Basket Wall, Water Entering the Extractor, Water Spun Out, Water Handed to the Dryer, Drying Energy Required, Drying Cost for this Load, Drying Energy Avoided, Extractor Electricity Used, Net Energy Saved, Energy per Point of Residual Moisture and Cost per Point of Residual Moisture — come from the same pass, so they always describe the same case as the headline figure.
5. Results are rounded for display only. The full-precision value is used throughout the chain, so reading a rounded intermediate figure back into the tool by hand can shift the last digit.

What each input means

Where to read each value on the floor, the unit it must be in, and the range the tool accepts.

What the tool returns

The headline figure and every supporting value it is built from.

Worked example

The tool loads with this case already solved — the Return on Extraction shown above is its answer. Change one value and the difference from this baseline is the sensitivity of the result to that variable.

How to use it

1. Work through the input groups in order — Extractor and Load & Dryer. The defaults are a realistic case, so you can change one value at a time and watch what moves.
2. There is no calculate button. Every figure recalculates as you type or drag, which is what makes this usable for a what-if sweep rather than a single answer.
3. Read Return on Extraction in the dark results panel — that is the headline figure, expressed in x.
4. Check the supporting rows underneath (G-Force at the Basket Wall, Water Entering the Extractor, Water Spun Out, Water Handed to the Dryer, Drying Energy Required, Drying Cost for this Load, Drying Energy Avoided, Extractor Electricity Used, Net Energy Saved, Energy per Point of Residual Moisture and Cost per Point of Residual Moisture) before acting on the headline — they are where an implausible input usually shows itself first.
5. Reset to defaults returns every field to the reference case, which is the quickest way to check whether a surprising result came from the tool or from an input you had changed earlier.

Where this is used

• Process planning — establishing Return on Extraction before a trial is booked, so machine time and material in Sustainability, ETP & Utilities are committed against a calculated figure rather than an estimate.
• Costing and quotation — Return on Extraction is an input to the cost sheet, and quoting from a worked number rather than a remembered one is what keeps a margin intact.
• Troubleshooting — when the floor result drifts from plan, entering the measured values (starting with Basket Diameter) shows how much of the gap in Return on Extraction each variable explains.
• Teaching and study — the accepted ranges bracket normal Sustainability, ETP & Utilities practice, so moving one variable at a time shows the shape of the relationship rather than a single answer.

Assumptions and limits

• Moisture is expressed on the dry mass, which is why a figure above one hundred per cent is ordinary rather than an error: a hundred kilos of dry cloth carrying a hundred and twenty per cent is holding a hundred and twenty kilos of water. The drying energy is latent heat alone, at 2257 kJ per kilogram, divided by a stated thermal efficiency. That makes it a floor and not a forecast: it counts nothing for heating the cloth and the machine to temperature, nothing for the air changes a dryer needs to carry vapour away, and nothing for the last few per cent of moisture, which comes out far more slowly than the first. A real dryer will use more than this figure and never less. Residual moisture is deliberately an input rather than something predicted from g-force and time, because that relationship depends on the fibre, the construction, the batch density and how the load sits in the basket, and no general curve for it belongs in a calculator. Measure it off the machine, or enter the figure the process is specified to. The g-force is geometry and holds regardless: it is the force at the basket wall, and cloth packed toward the centre sees less.
• Every input is bounded to the range normal practice occupies (Basket Diameter 200 to 2000 mm, Extraction Speed 100 to 2000 rpm and Motor Power 0.5 to 60 kW, and so on for the rest). Those bounds are guard rails against typing errors, not a claim that the formula fails one unit outside them.
• The calculation is deterministic: the same inputs always give the same result. It carries no allowance for machine condition, operator skill, ambient conditions or lot-to-lot material variation unless an input above explicitly represents one.
• Nothing is sent anywhere. The maths runs in your browser, so the numbers you type never leave the page.

Questions people ask