Comparison of Australian Clothes Dryer Test Methods with other International Methods

The following comparison of the test procedure for clothes dryers under AS/NZS 2442.1 with US ANSI/AHAM and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) test procedures is taken from the Foreword of AS/NZS 2442.1. The following text has been provided courtesy of Standards Australia.

Background Information

Australian Standard AS 2442-1981 adopted some test procedures and methods from US Standard AHAM A197.6, which has since been superseded several times and is currently published as ANSI/AHAM HLD-1-1992, Performance Evaluation Procedure for Household Tumble Type Clothes Dryers.

In 1991, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) published IEC 1121, Method for measuring the performance of tumbler dryers for household use.

There are many significant differences between this Standard and those two documents including the different clothes loads used by each, the fact that generally neither the IEC nor the ANSI/AHAM document set minimum performance requirements, the fact that only the IEC standard includes cool-down as part of the test and other details as follows:

Variable	AS/NZS 2442.1:1996	ANSI HLD 1-1992	IEC 1121:1991
Ambient temperature	20 ±2°C (8)	24 +3°C (1)	20 ±2°C
Humidity	60 ±5%	50 ±10%	65 ±5%
Load	Mixed load	Mixed load	Towels and sheets (2)
Initial moisture	90% ±20g of bone dry	100 ±1% of bone dry	70 ±5% normalized (3)
Final moisture	6% of bone dry	5 ±1% of bone dry	0 ±3% normalized (4)
Scope	All electric tumble	All tumble (5)	Most electric tumble (6)
Clothes temperature	Yes	Yes	No
Wrinkling/creasing test	No	Yes	Under consideration
Lint content exhaust air	No	No	Under consideration
Energy correction	Yes	No	Yes (7)

NOTES:

1 ANSI allows no downward tolerance for this temperature range. However, this is superseded by a United States Department of Energy regulation specifying 75 ±3°F.

2 IEC proposes simplification of the current load (sheets, towels and pillowcases) to align with IEC 456.

3 IEC normalized mass to ISO 139 will result in a moisture content of about 8% of bone dry; therefore 70% normalized is approximately 84% bone dry. The 1995 Committee Draft for Voting suggests a range of 70 ±1% as the allowable initial moisture content.

4 IEC normalized mass to ISO 139, this range equates to circa 4.8% to 11.2% of bone dry mass.

5 ANSI Standard also covers gas powered tumble dryers.

6 IEC 1121:1991 excludes dryer part of combination washer/dryers, but this may be revised shortly.

7 Energy correction in IEC 1121 is an overall linear correction, rather than an interpolation at the target moisture content.

8 The ambient air temperature was changed from 23°C to 20°C in 1998 (Amendment 2 - 1999).

A copy of the standard can be purchased from SAI Global under licence from Standards Australia.

This page last modified 14 July 2008